UC-NRLF 


SB    17    flMfl 


Trade  Tests  in  Education 


By 
HERBERT  ANDERSON  Toops 


Submitted  in  Partial  Fulfillment  of  the 

Requirements  for  the  Degree  of  Doctor  of 

Philosophy,  in  the  Faculty  of  Philosophy, 

Columbia  University 


Published  by 

tEeacfjers;  College,  Columbia 

New  York  City 
1921 


Copyright,  1921,  by  HERBERT  ANDERSON  TOOPS 


T6 


.  .  -.  • •*-. 


ACKNOWLEDGM  ENTS 

in  a  work  of  this  kind,  reporting  as  it  does  in  large  part  the 
methods  developed  by  an  army  group,  the  author  is  evidently 
indebted  to  many  persons,  both  directly  and  indirectly.  To  Dr. 
E.  L.  Thorndike,  whose  direction  and  inspiration  has  been  such 
as  to  lead  to  a  greater  undertaking  in  this  work  than  originally 
planned,  much  special  credit  is  due  for  such  merit  as  this  work 
may  possess.  Special  mention  should  be  made  of  others  whose 
guidance  and  aid  have  directly  been  very  helpful  in  this  work: 
Dr.  Truman  L.  Kelly,  whose  statistical  guidance  has  made  pos- 
sible the  analysis  methods  developed  herein;  Dr.  Arthur  D.  Dean, 
whose  vocational  philosophy  is  reflected  from  many  pages  of  this 
book;  Miss  Lucy  L.  Brown,  teacher  in  charge  of  the  vocational 
testing  classes  at  the  Manhattan  Trade  School  for  Girls,  whose 
cooperation  and  interest  have  made  possible  the  analysis  of  vo- 
cational guidance  data;  Dr.  A.  H.  Ryan,  director  of  the  Indus- 
trial Hygiene  Department  of  The  Scovill  Manufacturing  Co.,  for 
industrial  data  bearing  on  the  evaluation  of  talents  for  the  job 
of  youths  newly  entering  industry;  Dr.  Howard  G.  Burgess,  of  the 
Vocational  Training  Department  of  the  New  York  Military  Train- 
ing Commission,  who  has  supplied  statistics  on  the  grades  completed 
in  school  by  working  boys  recently  leaving  school  in  the  state  in 
New  York;  Mr.  James  D^  Jackson  who  spent  many  weary  hours  in 
most  helpful  statistical  aid;  Drs.  J.  Crosby  Chapman,  William 
McCall,  and  Arthur  S.  Otis  who  gave  valuable  aid  in  special  aspects 
of  this  work.  Acknowledgment  is  made  to  a  host  of  others,  whose 
contributions,  although  not  specially  mentioned,  are  none  the  less 
valuable. 

HERBERT  A.  TOOPS 


45'J685 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.   THE  VALUE  AND  USES  OF  TRADE  TESTS i 

1.  The  value  of  tjrade  school  instruction  a  debatable  iss,ue. 

2.  Lack  of  units  in  which  to  measure  trade  proficiency. 

3.  The  value  of  trade  tests  in  vocational  education. 

A.  In  testing  progress,  and  maintaining  interest  in  trade  in- 

struction. 

B.  In  making  proper  allowances  for  individual  differences  in 

rates  of  acquiring  trade  proficiency. 

C.  In  educational  and  vocational  guidance  and  school  place- 

ment work. 

4.  The  broadness  of  scope  of  "trade  test  methods." 

5.  The  classification  of  trade  tests. 

A.  Tests  of  proficiency  or  success  in  a  trade. 

a.  Description  of  the  oral,  picture,  and  performance  trade 

test  methods,  and  reproduction  of  a  typical  test  of  each. 

B.  Tests  of  trade  capacity,  potentiality  or  promise, 
o.   The  varied  nature  of  tests  of  trade  capacity. 

b.  Description  of  a  typical  performance  test  of  ability  to 

learn  a  new  trade  operation. 

C.  The  fundamental  basis  of  all  trade  tests,  a  statistical  tech- 

nique common  to  all  test  methods. 

II.   TESTS  OF  TRADE  PROFICIENCY  OR  SUCCESS,  AND  THEIR 

ADAPTATION  TO  SCHOOL  WORK 17 

1.  Comparison  of  the  tests  of  the  interview  and. "hiring  on  trial" 

with  the  oral  trade  test  method. 

2.  The  technique  of  trade  test  construction. 

A.  Selection  and  revision  of  oral  trade  test  questions. 

B.  Selection  and  revision  of  picture  trade  test  questions. 

C.  Standardization  of  trade  tests. 

D.  Selection  of  tasks  for  performance  trade  tests. 

E.  The  multiple  choice  written  trade  test. 

a.   An  experiment,  with  results  obtained  in  the  use  of  a  writ- 
ten bricklayers'  and  a  farmers'  test. 

F.  An  experiment,  with  the  results  obtained  from  a  written  infor- 

mation   test    made    up    in    three    different    examination 
methods. 

3.  The  factors  determinative  of  the  best  examination  method  for 

school  use. 

A.  Adaptation  of  the  one-word-answer  question  to  trade  and 

non-trade  school  examinations. 

B.  The  merits  and  possible  criticisms  of  trade  test  methods  in 

school  examinations. 


vi  Contents 

III.  TESTS  OF  TRADE  CAPACITY  AND  RESULTS  OF  THE  EVAL- 

UATION OF  THEIR  USE  IN  A  TRADE  SCHOOL      ...  63 

1 .  The  evolution  of  present-day  test  philosophy. 

2.  The  problem  of  industrial  placement. 

A.  Results  from  tests  of  vocational  capacity  secured  by  other 

investigators. 

B.  Use  of  job  analysis  in  vocational  placement. 

3.  An  experiment,  with  results  from  the  evaluation  of  trade  school 

tests  of  trade  capacity. 

A.  The  testing  department. 

B.  The  tests. 

C.  Methods  of,  and  results  from  evaluation  of  qualification  card 

and  supplementary  data. 

a.  Intercorrelations  of  the  tests. 

b.  Follow-up  report  on  tested  pupils  who  later  entered  com- 

mercial high  school. 

c.  The  value  of  the  testf. 

IV.  GENERAL  CONSIDERATIONS  IN  TESTING  AND  TRAINING 

FOR  PROFICIENCY  AND  PROMISE  IN  THE  TRADES  .    .      96 

1.  Trade  school  graduates  not  the  tradesmen  of  industry. 

2.  Specialization  in  industry  and  its  effects  upon  tradesmen's  talents 

lor  the  job. 

3.  The  intellectual  narrowness  of  industrial  trade  training. 

4.  Distributions  of  talents  of  tradesmen,  and  their  significance  for 

training  and  selection  of  tradesmen. 

A.  Tradesmen's  intelligence. 

B.  Tradesmen's  general  education. 

5.  The  contribution  of  general  education  to  vocational  proficiency. 

A.  Results  in  the  case  of  general  clerks. 

B.  Results  in  the  case  of  eyelet  machine  operators. 

6.  Changes  in  trade  school  administration  suggested  by  trade  test 

methods. 

A.  .Adaptation  of  trade  school  instruction  to  the  intelligence 

level  of  the  pupils. 

B.  Use  of  trade  examinations  as  learning  incentives. 

C.  The  standard  job  method. 

D.  The  merits  of  the  self-administrative  recall  examination. 

APPENDIX:  STATISTICAL  METHODS 112 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  .  116 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  VALUE  AND  USES  OF  TRADE  TESTS 

Vocational  schools,  as  opposed  to  schools  for  general  education, 
have  as  their  avowed  aim  the  preparation  of  youth  to  earn  a  living 
in  vocations. 

The  extent  to  which  their  aim  is  achieved  by  such  schools  as  are 
called  vocational  schools  is  at  present  a  debatable  issue.  One  reason 
for  this  is  the  lack  of  means  with  which  to  measure  the  human 
products  of  such  schools.  Inability  to  know  the  product  of  the 
school  at  once  predetermines  an  inability  to  better  the  school 
administration  on  a  basis  of  the  needs  of  students.  Any  betterment 
in  present  methods  of  measuring  the  product  of  a  school  at  once 
produces  the  chance  for  bettering  the  school  administration 
on  the  basis  of  the  needs  of  the  students.  Only  until  very  re- 
cently has  trade  skill  and  knowledge  been  measured  in  more 
refined  terms  than  subjective  personal  judgments  of  "skilled  man" 
and  "helper,"  "successful"  and  "unsuccessful,"  "competent"  and 
"incompetent."  Army  trade  tests  solved  this  problem  for  the  army; 
adaptations  of  the  method  may  solve  the  problem  for  our  vocational 
schools.  Graduates  of  our  vocational  schools  are  at  present  of 
equal  merit,  so  far  as  measure  of  their  merit  goes,  for  they  all  re- 
ceive diplomas.  Industry  wants  a  more  accurate  measure  of  their 
hiring  worth ;  and  the  school  desires  to  recognize  the  varying  merit 
of  its  product. 

Unless  the  prospective  employer  can  successfully  rate  the  human 
product  of  the  vocational  school  he  is  at  a  loss  to  know  in  placing 
a  graduate  of  a  vocational  school  in  industry  whether  he  should 
adopt  a  course  different  from  that  followed  in  the  case  of  any  other  ap- 
plicant for  the  job.  The  average  employer  is  skeptical  of  the  value  of 
the  "book  learned"  tradesman.  His  skepticism,  we  must  believe, 
is  not  directed  so  much  toward  vocational  school  graduates  as 
against  particular  exceptional  individuals  in  the  past  who  have 
happened  to  fail  when  given  the  test  of  industry,  the  test  of  doing 
the  job  itself.  Could  graduating  students  be  rated  for  general  trade 
proficiency  against  men  in  the  trade  itself,  much  would  be  gained  in 
the  way  of  proving  just  what  is  the  value  of  any  specific  vocational 
training  program. 


2  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

The  percentage  of  a  graduating  vocational  school  group  which 
equals  or  exceeds  in  general  trade  skill  the  median  tradesman  in 
industry  is  a  theoretical  measure  of  the  efficiency  of  the  vocational 
school  instruction.  The  army  trade  tests,  standardized  on  random 
sampling  of  men  in  industry,  fulfill  these  requirements  of  measures 
of  final  trade  proficiency  after  a  period  of  training.  They  may  be 
used  equally  well  to  measure  trade  proficiency  at  any  point  of  its 
acquirement. 

Vocational  school  instruction  has  so  generally  meant  trade 
school  instruction  that  the  author  will  not  attempt  here  to  make  a 
distinction  between  the  two.  It  is  evident  that  there  is  no  dis- 
tinction between  the  two  in  the  field  of  tests,  which  have  a  common 
statistical  technique  and  hence  make  no  distinction,  save  in  content, 
between  intelligence  tests,  educational  tests,  vocational  tests,  trade 
tests,  or  any  other  variety  of  test  which  has  as  its  aim  the  pre- 
diction of  peoples'  abilities  to  do  something,  or  to  act  in  a  certain 
way.  Accordingly,  the  terms  "trade  test"  and  "vocational  test"  will 
be  used  interchangeably. 


VALUE  OF  TRADE  TESTS  IN  EDUCATIONAL  ADMINISTRATION 

The  values  of  trade  tests  in  education  are  such  as  pertain  to 
any  objective,  standardized  trade  examination  method.  Standard- 
ized tests,  or  tests  designed  by  taking  into  account  the  testing  princi- 
ples thus  far  discovered,  will  have  a  better  chance  of  fulfilling 
the  demands  made  upon  them  than  tests  not  so  constructed. 

For  argument's  sake,  one  may  take  for  granted  the  assumption 
that  a  vocational  education  course  under  consideration  is  a  desir- 
able course,  and  that  it  is  as  good  a  course  as  may  be  expected  to 
be  produced.  Not  all  students  will  apply  themselves  equally  to  the 
tasks  of  learning  the  trade  instructions  given  them  in  such  a  course, 
nor  profit  equally  from  those  received.  Tests  of  progress,  given  at 
periodical  intervals,  are  needed  to  keep  pupils  up  to  a  reasonable 
standard  of  interest  in  their  courses  and  for  purposes  of  grading 
students  at  the  end  of  the  year,  or  at  the  end  of  the  course.  If  such 
tests  can  be  standardized,  then  so  much  the  better.  But  if  not,  as 
will  often  be  the  case,  then  vocational  instructors  may  be  able  to 
profit  greatly  by  attention  to  the  methods  of  question  making  and 
test  lormulation  used  in  army  procedure. 


Value  and  Uses  3 

Of  two  students  of  equal  general  trade  or  vocational  ability, 
one  may  be  unusually  good  in  operation  A  and  be  unusually  poor  in 
B;  the  other  unusually  poor  in  A  but  good  in  B.  If,  during  the 
course  of  instruction,  the  strengths  and  weaknesses  of  each  student 
could  be  made  known,  much  valuable  time  of  the  student  might  be 
saved,  and  a  much  better  allround  ability  gained  by  the  teacher's 
adapting  his  teaching  to  individual  needs.  Diagnostic  tests  of  an- 
alyzed or  subdivided  elements  of  general  trade  ability  are  needed. 
These  will  be  developed  in  the  future.  A  knowledge  of  what  the 
army  was  able  to  do  in  measuring  trade  ability  should  help  the 
prospective  test  maker  in  making  up  such  tests.  Where  such  tests 
have  been  developed  to  the  point  where  they  are  sufficiently  accurate 
for  the  purpose,  we  may  expect  trade  instruction  to  be  done  largely 
by  the  job  or  operation  sheet  method,  and  the  pupil  to  be  advanced 
from  job  to  job  or  operation  to  operation  just  as  fast  as  he  shows  a  test 
measured  proficiency  of  X  in  each  job  or  operation.  Thus  will  result 
economy  of  time  required  in  learning  a  trade,  since  each  pupil  will 
progress  just  as  fast  as  he  is  capable  of  doing.  This  is  the  method 
found  successful  by  the  S.  A.  T.  C.  during  the  war,  and  since 
adopted  by  the  E.  and  R.  Schools  of  the  Army  in  teaching  trades  to 
thousands  of  boys.  In  the  j3ast  the  test  of  whether  or  not  a  given 
pupil  was  ready  for  promotion  to  a  new  job  has  been  a  subjective 
estimate  by  the  instructor,  aided  by  performance  on  the  job,  it  is 
true,  but  nevertheless  a  test  which  could  not  be  duplicated  by  an 
outside  person  without  a  personal  knowledge  of  the  pupils  being 
rated. 

Tests  of  promise  or  capacity  have  been  used  in  the  field  of  general 
education  for  a  number  of  years;  they  have  not  been  so  generally 
used  in  trade  education.  Much  research  work,  greatly  encouraged 
by  the  success  of  the  army  intelligence  tests,  has  demonstrated  the 
feasibility  of  classifying  school  children  on  the  basis  of  their  mental 
ability,  or  on  the  basis  of  a  composite  score  of  a  number  of  tests 
designed  to  predict  pupils'  abilities  to  profit  by  the  instruction 
given  them.  The  E.  and  R.  Schools  of  the  Army  have  thus  classified 
many  thousands  of  soldiers,  drawn  from  every  part  of  the  country 
and  from  foreign  countries,  with  varied  and  non-comparable  pre- 
vious school  experiences.  The  value  of  such  educational  guidance 
has  been  already  proved. 

Trade  test  methods,  making  use  of  refined  tests  of  trade  capacity, 


4  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

promise  to  throw  some  light  upon  the  age-old  problem  of  "What 
vocation  should  a  boy  enter?"  Whether  a  boy  should  take  up 
general  education,  trade  education,  or  professional  education,  is  a 
problem  which  we  may  hope  to  solve  only  by  development  of  a 
vocational  philosophy  formulated  with  the  aid  of  pertinent  facts 
of  human  abilities  and  vocational  opportunities  made  available  by 
the  statistical  methods  common  to  all  survey  methods.  In  con- 
junction with  psychological  tests,  physical  tests  and  questionnaires, 
tests  of  trade  capacity  may  be  expected  to  become  a  valuable  aid 
to  the  vocational  counsellor  of  the  future. 

The  best  large  vocational  schools  have  their  own  placement  or  em- 
ployment bureaus.  The  problem  of  such  bureaus  is  to  evaluate  into 
one  single  fitness  score,  by  a  subjective  process,  the  diversified 
talents  of  boys  and  girls  as  a  basis  for  a  twofold  categorical  divi- 
sion of  resulting  action  into  "recommended"  and  "not  recommended" 
for  the  prospective  position,  whether  job  in  industry,  or  school 
instruction  in  an  advanced  school.  Such  estimates,  when  based 
upon  proficiency  in  performing  trade  operations,  may  be  greatly 
enhanced  by  more  accurate  methods  of  measuring  trade  skill.  The 
two  aspects  of  such  placement  are:  (a)  knowledge  of  the  pupil's 
abilities,  and  (b)  the  requirements  of  the  job,  in  the  way  of  human 
abilities  and  acquirements.  Text-books  on  vocational  guidance  give 
many  facts  about  trades,  tradesmen  and  trade  conditions.  They 
generally  fail  to  specify  how  diverse  human  talents  for  the  job,  or 
diverse  demands  of  the  job  upon  the  worker,  may  be  evaluated. 
These  problems  will  be  ultimately  solved  by  methods  available  to, 
or  to  be  developed  by,  the  test  statistician. 

This  larger  aspect  of  "fitting  the  job  and  the  man"  is  even  more 
important  than  the  more  restricted  problem  of  measuring  the 
talents  for  a  job,  present  or  future,  measurable  by  trade  tests.  All 
make  use  of  a  common  statistical  technique.  Accordingly,  we 
should  mean  by  "trade  test  methods"  this  larger  aspect  of  evaluat- 
ing measurable  human  talents  in  terms  of  some  independent 
criterion  of  job  proficiency.  Inasmuch  as  tests  of  present  trade 
proficiency  are  promises  of  future  performances  (immediate  or 
remote)  on  the  job,  all  trade  tests  in  the  last  analysis  are  tests  of 
promise  or  capacity.  The  common  statistical  problem  of  all  such 
methods  is  the  problem  of  measuring  mutual  dependence  of  related 
measures  of  trade  capacity. 


Value  and  Uses  5 

( 

CLASSIFICATION  OF  TRADE  TESTS  AND  EXAMPLES  OF  TYPICAL  FORMS 

The  term  "trade  test"  is  used  to  refer  to  any  test  involving  test 
material  taken  from  the  trades.  Trade  tests  differ,  then,  from  any 
other  forms  of  tests  mainly  in  a  difference  in  content.  They  may  be 
categorically  divided  into  two  classes  according  to  the  purpose  of 
the  test,  and  further  sub-classified  according  to  form  of  test  material 
and  method  of  administration,  as  follows: 

I.  Tests  of  proficiency  or  success  in  a  trade. 

1.  Verbal. 

a.  Oral  Administration. 

(1)  Army  Oral. 

(a)  Oral  Answers. 

(b)  Written  Answers. 

(2)  Picture. 

b.  Written  Administration. 

(1)  One-word-answer. 

(2)  Multiple  Choice. 

2.  Performance  Tests. 

II.  Tests  of  trade  capacity,  potentiality,  or  promise. 

Sub-classes  of  this  group:  Practically  every  known  variety  of 
test,  including  the  above  verbal  forms,  has  been  used  by 
some  investigator  at  one  time  or  another. 

Trade  tests  were  used  in  the  army  to  determine  which  men,  of 
those  claiming  specific  trade  experience,  were  sufficiently  competent 
to  be  detailed  for  special  duty  in  the  trades  maintained  in  the  army. 
An  example  of  an  army  oral  form  of  test,  used  for  measuring  trade 
proficiency,  is  reproduced  herewith  in  an  eyelet  machine  operator's 
test.  This  test  may  be  given  individually  and  orally  by  an  examiner, 
the  answers  being  oral;  it  may  be  given  orally  to  a  group,  the 
answers  being  written  on  blank  paper;  or  it  may  be  administered 
by  the  use  of  printed  or  mimeographed  questions,  the  answers  being 
in  the  one-word-answer  form. 

EYELET  MACHINE  OPERATOR  (TENDER) 
(Army  oral  form  of  test  with  answer  in  the  one-word-answer  form.} 

1.  What  do  you  call  the  large  main  shaft  at  the  top  of  the  machine? 
Ans.    Cam. 

2.  What  rubs  on  the  cams  all  the  time  to  oil  them? 
Ans.    Tassel. 


6  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

3.  What  does  the  scrap  wind  up  on? 
Ans.   Reel. 

4.  What  drives  the  reel  from  the  bottom  cam  shaft? 
Ans.   Belt. 

5.  What  do  you  call  the  die  which  does  the  first  operation? 
Ans.   Blanking. 

6.  What  is  the  name  of  the  large  part  which  moves  back  and  forth  and  carries 

the  work  from  one  die  to  another? 
Ans.   Slide. 

7.  What  do  you  call  the  part  which  moves  up  and  down  and  carries  the   punch 

at  its  lower  end? 
Ans.    Plunger. 

8.  What  do  you  call  the  pulley  on  the  drive  shaft  which  is  not  fastened  to  the 

shaft? 
Ans.   Loose. 

9.  What  is  the  shaft  underneath  the  machine  called? 
Ans.   Cam. 

10.  What  are  the  small  springlike  parts  called  which  grab  the  work  and  carry  it 

from  one  die  to  another? 
Ans.   Finger. 

11.  What  do  you  use  to  measure  the  thickness  of  the  metal? 
Ans.   Micrometer. 

12.  What  do  you  use  to  cut  off  the  strip  metal? 
Ans.   Shears  (snips). 

13.  What  is  used  to  tell  if  the  finished  work  is  the  correct  size? 
Ans.  Gage. 

14.  What  do  you  call  a  gage  which  shows  the  largest  and  smallest  size  that  can  be 

allowed  on  a  finished  piece  of  work? 
Ans.   Limit  (maximum  and  minimum)  ("max  and  min"). 

15.  Of  what  metal  are  the  reels  made? 
Ans.    Brass. 

16.  What  is  the  shape  of  the  plungers? 
Ans.   Square. 

17.  When  five  rows  of  blanks  are  to  be  punched  from  the  strip  metal,  which 

row  is  punched  first? 
Ans.   Middle  (center). 

1 8.  What  is  there  on  the  end  of  the  air  pipe  to  let  the  air  out  at  just  the  right  time? 
Ans.   Valve. 

19.  How  many  holes  are  there  in  the  drive  pulley  to  turn  it  by  hand? 
Ans.   2  (4). 

20.  What  do  you  call  the  tool  used  to  turn  the  fly  wheel  by  hand? 
Ans.   Bar. 

21.  What  part  of  the  cam  shaft  regulates  the  air? 
Ans.   Cam. 

22.  If  the  top  cam  shaft  turns  at  60  revolutions  per  minute  how  many  revolu- 

tions per  minute  does  the  bottom  cam  shaft  turn? 
Ans.   60  (same). 


Value  and  Uses  7 

23.  What  guides  the  finished  work  into  the  pan? 
Ans.    Spout  (pipe). 

24.  What  is  the  sheet  iron  around  the  gears  called? 
Ans.    Guard. 

25.  What  does  the  pan  for  the  work  set  on? 
Ans.    Box. 

26.  What  do  the  dies  set  in? 
Ans.    Holder. 

27.  What  tool  do  you  use  to  turn  the  roll  feed? 
Ans.    Wrench. 

28.  What  material  is  used  to  line  a  brake  on  machines  which  have  a  brake  on  the 

drive  shaft? 
Ans.    Leather  (wood). 

29.  How  is  the  punch  fastened  to  the  plunger? 
Ans.   Screws  in  (wrench)  (thread). 

30.  What  is  the  washer  made  of  that  is  sometimes  used  on  the  reel  shaft? 
Ans.    Leather. 

31.  W7hat  do  you  call  the  attachment  sometimes  used  around  a  punch  to  make 

the  work  let  loose  from  the  punch? 
Ans.    Thimble. 

32.  How  are  the  bottom  cams  made  so  that  they  can  be  timed? 
Ans.    Split  (halves)  (screw). 

33.  What  tool  do  you  use  to  set  the  bottom  cams  on  the  bottom  cam  shaft? 
Ans.   Screw-driver. 

34.  Of  what  material  is  the  part  of  the  slide  friction  made  that  rubs  on  the  slide? 
Ans.    Wood  (maple). 

Army  picture  tests  were  administered  orally  and  the  answers 
given  orally.  They  were  used  as  a  check  on  the  ratings  made  on  the 
oral  tests,  which  are  somewhat  subject  to  language  difficulties  and 
to  coaching.  The  method  is  essentially  the  army  oral  method,  but 
with  pictures  used  to  describe  the  trade  situation  in  the  place  of  the 
descriptive  phrases  or  clauses  which  must  be  used  in  the  oral  method. 
The  lathe  hand  test,  herewith  reproduced,  pages  8  to  14,  is  typical 
of  this  form  of  examination. 

The  performance  test  aims  to  duplicate  a  shop  situation,  the  test 
subject  being  rated  on  the  quantity  and  quality  of  work  done  on  a 
job  or  problem  assigned.  These  have  the  merit,  not  possessed  by 
ordinary  shop  jobs,  of  being  so  chosen  as  to  require  a  maximum 
amount  of  manipulation  of  tools,  use  of  trade  knowledge  and  trade 
skill.  A  sample  performance  test,  used  in  testing  ability  to  use 
machinists'  measuring  tools,  is  shown  on  page  15.  This  particular 
test  has  as  its  products  a  series  of  dimensions  entered  on  a  form 
blank,  which  are  scorable  by  stencil. 


8  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

Tests  of  trade  proficiency  were  developed  later  than  tests  of  trade 
capacity.  Tests  of  trade  proficiency  were  developed  to  a  high  point 
of  efficiency  during  the  War.  The  possibilities  of  large  scale  re- 
search in  developing  tests  of  trade  capacity  have  not  yet  been 
tested.  It  is  the  special  function  of  this  research  to  point  out  the 
value  of  such  work  by  statistical  inquiry  into  particular  selected 
vocations  and  trade  school  methods. 

LATHE  HAND  TEST 
PICTURE  i 

1.  What  is  the  part  at  G  called? 
Ans.   Steady-rest. 

2.  What  letter  shows  the  live  center? 
Ans.    D. 

3.  What  is  the  lever  at  K  used  for? 
Ans.    Screws  (threads). 

4.  What  do  you  call  the  part  at  C? 
Ans.    Face-plate. 

5.  What  do  you  call  the  lever  at  A? 
Ans.    Back-gear. 

6.  What  is  the  part  at  L  used  for? 
Ans.    Gears  (change  the  gears). 

7.  What  letter  shows  the  cone? 
Ans.    B. 

8.  What  letter  marks  the  tail  stock? 
Ans.   H. 

9.  What  is  the  part  at  F  called? 
Ans.    Follower-rest  (follower). 

10.  What  is  the  part  at  J  called? 
Ans.    Rack. 

11.  What  is  the  part  at  I  called? 
Ans.    Lead-screw. 

12.  What  is  the  part  at  E  called? 
Ans.   Tool-post. 

PICTURE  2 

13.  What  does  that  micrometer  read? 
Ans.    .125. 

14.  What  is  the  part  at  A  called? 
Ans.    Ratchet. 

PICTURE  3 

15.  What  do  you  call  that  lathe  tool? 
Ans.    Dog. 

16.  What  does  the  part  at  A  fit  into  on  the  lathe? 
Ans.    Face-plate  (slot  on  face-plate). 


A  ,fl 


PLATE  i.     PAGE  i  OF  LATHE  HAND  PICTURE  TRADE  TEST 


io  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

PICTURE  4 

17.  What  do  you  call  that  tool? 
Ans.    Boring. 

PICTURE  5 

1 8.  What  is  that  tool  called? 
Ans.    Dividers. 

PICTURE  6 

19.  What  do  you  call  that  lathe  tool? 
Ans.    Center. 

20.  How  many  degrees  in  the  angle  of  the  point  of  that  center? 
Ans.   60. 

PICTURE  r 

21.  What  do  you  call  that  tool? 
Ans.    Center-punch. 

PICTURE  8 

22.  What  is  that  tool  used  for? 
Ans.   Threads  (screws). 

PICTURE  9 

23.  In  what  operation  is  that  tool  used? 
Ans.    Drilling. 

PICTURE  io 

24.  What  letter  marks  the  apron  of  that  lathe? 
Ans.    G. 

25.  What  letter  marks  the  bed  of  that  lathe? 
Ans.    H. 

26.  What  letter  shows  the  part  which  you  turn  to  throw  the  longitudinal  feed  in 

gear? 
Ans.    C. 

27.  What  letter  shows  the  part  which  you  turn  to  throw  the  automatic  cross-feed 

in  gear? 
Ans.    D. 

28.  What  letter  marks  the  part  which  works  the  compound-feed? 
Ans.    I. 

29.  What  letter  shows  the  swing  of  that  lathe? 
Ans.    A. 

PICTURE  n 

30.  What  operation  is  being  done  in  that  picture? 
Ans.    Boring. 

31.  What  is  the  part  at  A  called? 
Ans.    Face-plate. 

32.  What  is  the  part  at  B  called? 
Ans.    Dog. 


PLATE  II.     PAGE  2  OF  LATHE  HAND  PICTURE  TRADE  TEST 


12  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

33.  What  is  the  part  at  C  called? 
Ans.    Boring-bar. 

PICTURE  12 

34.  If  the  lead  screw  on  that  lathe  has  8-threads  per  inch,  how  many  threads  per 

inch  will  that  lathe  cut  with  those  gears? 
Ans.    1 6. 

35.  What  is  the  gear  at  A  called? 
Ans.    Idler  (intermediate). 

PICTURE  13 

36.  What  is  the  tool  in  that  picture  called? 
Ans.    Morphadite  (hermaphrodite). 

PICTURE  14 

37.  What  tool  is  being  squared-up  in  that  picture? 
Ans.    Threading. 

PICTURE  15 

38.  What  operation  is  being  done  in  that  picture? 
Ans.    Taper. 

39.  If  the  stock  in  that  lathe  is  2-feet  long  and  you  want  a  taper  of  ^-inch  per 

foot,  how  far  do  you  set-over  the  screw  G? 
Ans.    y4  (X-inch). 

PICTURE,  1 6 

40.  What  tool  is  being  squared-up  in  that  picture? 
Ans.    Inside-threading. 

PICTURE  17 

41.  What  do  you  call  that  tool? 
Ans.    Vernier-caliper. 

42.  What  is  the  smallest  fraction  of  an  inch  which  that  will  measure? 
Ans.    i  /iooo. 

PICTURE  18 

43.  What  do  you  call  the  part  at  B? 
Ans.    Collet  (collar)  (washer). 

44.  What  do  you  call  a  slot  like  that  at  A? 
Ans.   T-slot. 

45.  How  far  does  one  revolution  of  the  handle  at  C  advance  the  point  of  the 

thread  tool? 
Ans.    y*  (i^-inch)  (.125). 

PICTURE  19 

46.  What  is  the  name  of  the  tool  at  i? 
Ans.   Left-hand-facing. 

47.  What  is  the  name  of  the  tool  at  2? 
Ans.    Right-hand-facing. 

48.  What  is  the  name  of  the  tool  at  4? 
Ans.   Diamond-point. 


/9. 


« 


rig.  a  i. 


o 


rig.  a.  5. 


F/g.ZS. 


PLATE  III.     PAGE  3  OF  LATHE  HAND  PICTURE  TRADE  TEST 


14  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

49.  What  is  the  name  of  the  tool  at  6? 
Ans.    Round-nose. 

50.  What  is  the  name  of  the  tool  at  7? 
Ans.    Parting  (cutting-off). 

51.  What  is  the  name  of  the  tool  at  9? 
Ans.    Bent-threading. 

52.  What  is  the  name  of  the  tool  at  12? 
Ans.    Inside-threading. 

PICTURE  20 

53.  What  gear  do  you  use  on  the  lead-screw  to  cut  a  screw  of  13  threads  per  inch, 

if  you  have  a  24-tooth  gear  on  the  spindle? 
Ans.   39. 

54.  How  many  threads  per  inch  on  a  i-inch  pipe  thread? 
Ans.    11^2. 

PICTURE  21 

55.  What  kind  of  work  has  been  done  on  that  stock? 
Ans.    Knurling. 

PICTURE  22 

56.  What  do  you  call  that  lathe  tool? 
Ans.    Drill-chuck. 

57.  What  do  you  call  the  set-screws  on  that  chuck? 
Ans.   Safety. 

PICTURE  23 

58.  What  do  you  call  the  part  at  B? 
Ans.    Chuck. 

59.  What  do  you  call  the  part  at  A? 
Ans.   Turrett. 

PICTURE  24 

60.  What  is  being  turned-up  in  that  picture? 
Ans.    Crank-shaft. 

61.  What  is  the  part  at  A  called? 
Ans.   Jig. 

62.  What  do  you  use  to  prevent  vibration  when  turning  off-center  work? 
Ans.    Weight  (balance)  (counter-balance). 

PICTURE  25 

63.  What  do  you  call  that  tool? 
Ans.   V-block. 

64.  What  is  that  tool  used  for? 
Ans.    Centering  (laying-out). 

PICTURE  26 

65.  What  do  you  call  that  tool? 
Ans.    Depth-gage. 


Value  and  Uses 


Tests  of  trade  capacity,  potentiality,  or  promise  range  widely  in 
content,  administration,  and  test  method.  At  one  end  of  the  range 
of  tests  so  used  in  the  past,  we  have  the  simple  tests  of  psycho- 
physical  measurements;  at  the  opposite  end,  we  have  lengthy 
questionnaires  aiming  at  measuring  amateur  ability  in  the  trade, 
and  initial  demonstration  trade  lessons  with  performance  tests 
thereon,  designed  to  measure  ability  to  learn  simple  processes  of 

Name Fherk  Nn 


Tool  Maker,  Lathe  Hand.etc.  Meosurmtnt  Performance  Ttst. 


Tools  Retired.    Machinists  Scale  ( fa*  «n 
Dtpih  6QQ€j  Surface  Gooe,  Taper 
Inside  and  Outside  CQIijoers.  Mic 
Qaliotr>  Hook  Rule, Surface P/arte.. 


Directions-.   Measure  the  costing  at 
the  points  indicated j  and  write  the 

the  chart. 
NOT  MARK  CASTING. 


M6QS. 


DESCRIPTTOX 


in  Inches 
(Decimals). 


Width  ±.01 


Width  ±.001 


Lengthi.Ol 


Heia,ht±.OI 


Outstde  Diameter  ±.OOO5 


Diameter ±.01 


Inside  Diameter  ±.00 1 


Thickness  ±.01 


Height    ±.01 


Toper  per  -foot  ±.OZ 


Centre  to  face  dist ±.02. 


Depth  of  Holt  ±  .001 


FIG.  27.  MEASUREMENT  PERFORMANCE  TEST  FOR  TOOLMAKER,  LATHE  HAND, 
DESIGNER,  ETC.  DESIGNED  TO  INVOLVE  USE  OF  PRINCIPAL  MEASURING  TOOLS. 
THE  CASTING  Is  MACHINED  AND  POLISHED. 

the  trade.  The  apparatus  used  in  administering  such  tests  has  varied 
from  a  piece  of  paper  and  pencil  to  elaborate  apparatus  designed  to 
imitate  the  motions  of  the  job  while  automatically  recording 
quality  and  quantity  of  performance.  Such  tests  have  been  used  to 
predict  probable  wages,  amount  of  production  per  hour,  foreman's 
rankings  of  workers,  accident  risk,  school  marks,  chance  of  being  hired 
when  referred  to  a  job,  probable  length  of  stay  on  the  job,  and  so  on. 
As  typical  of  one  of  the  most  recent  developments  of  tests  of  trade 
capacity  might  be  mentioned  a  pasting  test  used  at  the  Manhattan 
Trade  School  for  Girls,  New  York  City.  The  teacher,  with  all 
required  materials  before  her,  demonstrates  the  making  of  a  paper 


1 6  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

covered  pasteboard  box.  Each  step  in  the  operation  is  explained: 
the  use  of  tools,  position  of  fingers,  position  of  materials,  chances 
for  doing  poor  work  which  must  be  avoided  by  the  pupil.  At  the 
completion  of  the  demonstration  each  child  takes  her  seat,  and 
is  provided  with  paste-pot,  paste,  brush,  wipe-rag,  scissors,  past- 
ingboard,  pasteboard,  colored  paper,  cloth  for  reenforcement  of 
covers,  and  rule.  Without  further  instruction  the  pupil  makes  the 
best  box  she  can,  guided  by  the  instructions  remembered.  The  final 
score  on  the  performance  is  subjectively  judged  by  the  teacher  for 
"accuracy,  neatness,  speed  and  handling,"  which  four  are  finally 
subjectively  evaluated  into  an  "estimate  of  pasting  ability."  It  will 
thus  be  seen  that  the  test  involves  ability  to  imitate  recalled  di- 
rections and  demonstrated  trade  performance;  in  short,  ability  to 
learn  a  new  trade  job. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  emphasize  the  fact  that,  in  so  far  as  test 
technique  is  concerned,  there  is  nothing  essentially  new  or  different 
in  a  trade  test  from  tests  used  in  the  past,  called  intelligence  tests, 
educational  tests,  or  vocational  tests.  The  growing  use  of  the 
statistical  method  of  partial  correlation  has  helped  to  emphasize  the 
fact  that  any  measurable  variable  fact  about  a  group  of  people 
may  be  used  to  predict  any  other  variable  fact  about  that  same 
group  with  which  it  correlates  either  positively  or  negatively. 
Almost  any  verbal  intelligence  test  will  be  found  to  be  a  fair  predict- 
er  of  school  marks;  school  marks  may,  in  certain  vocations,  be  fair 
predicters  of  probable  after-school  success  in  industry;  marital 
condition  may  be  a  fair  predicter  of  a  man's  chances  of  being  hired 
when  referred  to  a  prospective  employer  for  a  job.  The  essential 
common  basis  of  all  such  scientifically  constructed  tests, — and  trade 
tests  in  particular, — are :  (a)  determination  of  a  numerical  value  for 
both  variables,  test  score  and  measure  of  success,  on  a  group  of 
persons  of  known  or  judged  ability,  and  (b)  determination  of  the 
correspondence  of  test  score  to  job  ability  to  be  predicted,  on  the 
hypothesis  that  the  most  probable  ability  of  a  second  person,  of  un- 
known ability  on  the  job,  but  with  a  given  test  score  X,  is  the 
ability  of  the  standardization  group  of  persons  which  corresponds 
to  the  test  score  X.  The  variable,  degree  of  success  on  the  job, 
which  is  to  be  predicted,  is  generally  known  as  the  "criterion."  Due 
to  lack  of  standardization  of  workmen's  job  status  in  industry, 
a  criterion  of  trade  ability  is  unusually  hard  to  establish.  The 
statistical  technique  used  is  employed  in  other  kinds  of  tests  as  well. 


CHAPTER  II 

TESTS  OF  TRADE  PROFICIENCY  OR  SUCCESS,  AND 
THEIR  ADAPTATION  TO  SCHOOL  WORK 

COMPARISON  OF  THE  TESTS  OF  THE  INTERVIEW  AND  "HIRING  ON 
TRIAL"  WITH  THE  ORAL  TRADE  TEST  METHOD 

The  interview  has  long  been  the  basis  upon  which  men  have  been 
judged  in  regard  to  their  fitness  for  jobs.  When  questions,  specifi- 
cally applying  to  the  qualifications  for  the  job,  have  been  asked  the 
applicant,  these  have  formed  one  kind  of  trade  test. 

Previous  to  the  war,  little  constructive  thought  had  been  given 
to  the  methods  of  examining  tradesmen.  Many  studies  of  labor 
turnover  had  clearly  indicated  that  the  causes  inherent  in  the  way 
men  are  fitted  into  jobs  are  often  the  major  causes  of  such  labor 
turnover.  Ways  of  bettering  the  selection  or  examining  process 
were  slow  in  being  developed. 

One  of  the  most  common  methods  of  selection  of  men  has  been 
the  process  of  "hiring  on  trial."  The  costliness  of  the  method  in 
time  spent  in  supervision  of  the  new  employee,  spoiled  materials, 
broken  machinery  and  dissatisfaction  of  the  employee  judged  in- 
competent after  trial  make  the  method  too  costly  for  present-day 
use.  Consequently,  one  may  say  that  present-day  general  practice 
is  to  hire  men  by  an  interview  given  them  at  the  employment  office. 

Some  of  the  most  apparent  defects  in  the  method  will  be  discussed, 
for  it  is  just  such  inferior  methods  of  examination  that  any  gradu- 
ate of  any  school  has  to  face  when  applying  for  a  job. 

1.  The   applicant   is   seldom    given   many   pertinent   questions 
about  the  job  for  which  he  is  being  examined.  The  routine  of  filling 
out  a  qualification  card  usually  takes  so  much  time  that  little  time 
is  given  to  the  much  mdre  important  consideration  of  the  trade  qual- 
ifications possessed  by  the  applicant.    Statistically,  the  objection 
is  that  where  few  questions  are  used,  the  ratio  of  the  P.E.  of  an  in- 
dividual score  to  the  magnitude  of  the  score  is  too  large. 

2.  Not  all  applicants  get  the  same  set  of  questions,  but  each 
applicant  receives  the  questions  which  come  to  the  examiner's  mind 


1 8  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  Even  if  the  evaluation  of  the  questions 
were  objective,  comparable  ratings  would  be  impossible.  Depending 
upon  the  questions  asked,  the  difficulty  of  examinations  received  by 
successive  applicants  varies  greatly. 

3.  Because  of  insufficient  care  in  wording  the  questions,   the 
questions  which  are  asked  may  be  generally  answered  satisfactorily 
by  a  person  with  only  a  very  superficial  knowledge  of  the  trade 
process  referred  to.    Thus  questions  are  often  merely  a  test  of  the 
workman's  ability  to  understand   the  language  of  the  examiner 
rather  than  a  test  of  his  trade  knowledge  or  skill. 

4.  "Trick"  questions  have  been  common.    The  assumption   un- 
derlying these  seems  to  be  a  feeling  that  the  truly  expert  tradesman 
will  not  be  caught  by  the  subtle  trap  set  for  him  by  the  examiner. 

5.  Guess    questions,    or    questions    adequately    answerable    by 
"yes"  or  "no,"  have  often  been  used.    This  form  of  test,  commonly 
known  as  the  "true-false"  test,  is  a  common  form  of  psychological 
test  method.    In  order  to  a\  oid  a  high  P.E.  of  the  individual  score, 
test  makers  generally  use  a  large  number  of  such  questions  and  em- 
ploy a  scoring  formula  which  penalizes  errors. 

6.  Owing  undoubtedly   to   the  seeming   failures  of  the  verbal 
method  in  the  past,  a  very  general  belief  has  arisen  among  interview- 
ers, and  trades  people  in  general,  that  the  only  reliable  way  to  test 
a  workingman's  trade  ability  is  to  watch  the  workman  at  his  work. 
Consequently,  the  trade  examination  is  often  slighted.    Practically 
no  attempts,  outside  of  a  few  experiments  by  psychologists,  have 
been  made  to  prove  statistically  the  worth  of  one  examination 
as  against  any  other. 

7.  Using  the  common   type  of  question  demanding  long  ex- 
planatory answers,  much  time  would  necessarily  have  to  be  devoted 
to  the  trade  examination  in  order  to  sample  but  a  very  few  of  the 
elements  of  trade  skill  and  knowledge  possessed  by  the  tradesman. 

8.  Owing  to  the  time  limitations  and  necessity  of  using  as  ex- 
aminer a  person  well  versed  in  the  trade  and  in  methods  of  oral 
examination,  it  is  impossible  to  use  the  method  where  great  numbers 
of  persons  in  various  trades  might  be  desired  to  be  examined  with 
many  pertinent  trade  questions.   One  of  the  greatest  advantages  of 
the  personal  oral  examination  is  the  use  of  pertinent  follow-up  ques- 
tions, used  by  the  examiner  as  a  sort  of  trade  cross-examination 
method.  The  method  is  not  adaptable  to  written  trade  examinations, 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  19 

such  as  are  desirable,  and  often  necessary,  in  all  trade  or  vocational 
school  examinations. 

9.  In  any  follow-up  of  graduates  of  a  trade  school,  for  instance, 
the  only  available  statistical  record  kept  of  the  oral  interview  is  the 
note  on  the  qualification  card  of  "hired"  or  "not  hired."  Such  cate- 
gorical ratings  are  entirely  too  crude  for  accurate  statistical  studies. 
Furthermore,  the  judgment  thus  given  is  a  composite  subjective 
judgment  of  not  only  the  results  of  the  trade  questions  but  of  the 
qualification  card  entries  as  well.  It  is  thus  impossible  to  tell  how 
much  weight  the  one  factor  may  have  had,  as  against  the  others,  in 
determining  the  final  categorical  rating. 

10.  For  any  reasonable  approach  to  accuracy,  the  scoring  of  the 
answers  given  demands  an  expert  in  the  trade  to  evaluate  the  trades- 
man's answers.  In  any  modern  large  industrial  employment  office, 
men  are  hired  in  many  trades  and  for,  literally,  hundreds  of  different 
jobs.  It  is  obviously  impossible  for  one  man  to  be  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  the  trade  processes  of  so  many  trades  and  jobs.  The 
self-styled  "expert"  examiner,  after  having  once  discovered  a  few 
trade  questions  on  each  trade,  usually  lets  his  examinations  there- 
after be  wholly  made  up  of  the  few  trade  questions  which  come  to 
mind  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  The  questions  are  easily  coached 
for  by  intelligent  workmen,  while  the  method  fails  utterly  as  do  all 
oral  methods,  in  the  case  of  illiterate  or  foreign-born  workmen. 

Many  of  the  above  enumerated  disadvantages  of  the  present 
verbal  methods  of  examination  are  overcome  by  the  army  oral  ex- 
amination. This  examination  owes  its  value  largely  to  the  methods 
used  in  obtaining  the  information  which  will  make  good  trade  ques- 
tions, and  in  the  methods  of  wording  the  questions.  These  advan- 
tages are  as  follows: 

1 .  The  questions  are  assembled  in  conference  with  experts  in  the 
trade,  only  those  questions  being  selected  for  standardization  which 
have  been  proved  to  be  answerable  by  a  majority  of  the  expert 
tradesmen  in  the  trade  in  question.   The  questions  are  thus,  first  of 
all  in  the  assembly  process,  selected  questions;  they  are  not  such 
questions  as  expert  opinion   might  be  convinced   were  desirable 
questions,  but  rather  questions  such  as  tryouts  on  experts  in  the 
trade  have  demonstrated  to  be  pertinent  questions. 

2.  The  questions  are  later  standardized  on  men  in  industry  of 
known  different  degrees  of  ability,  and  a  further  selection  of  ques- 


2O  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

tions  is  made  upon  the  statistical  basis  of  proved  differentiation  of 
different  degrees  of  trade  skill  on  the  part  of  each  question  used  in 
the  final  test. 

3.  Due  both  to  the  clearness  in  meaning  to  the  applicant  of  the 
questions  and  to  the  short  key-word  answers  demanded  by  the 
questions,  many  questions  may  be  given  in  a  short  time.    When 
examining  expert  tradesmen,  a  speed  of  as  many  as  three  or  even 
four  questions  given  and  answered  per  minute  is  possible.    This 
means  that  many  samplings  of  diverse  elements  of  trade  ability  may 
be  made  in  the  same  time  as  formerly  devoted  to  but  few  questions. 

4.  The  key-word  scoring  method  makes  the  scoring  thoroughly 
objective.   All  possible  allowable  answers  are  predetermined  at  the 
time  of  the  compilation  of  the  examination.   Consequently,  any  per- 
son competent  to  recognize  the  printed  answer  is  practically  as 
competent  an  examiner  using  the  questions  as  any  expert  in  the 
trade,   and   more    competent    than    a    trade    expert   without    the 
questions. 

THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  TRADE  TEST  CONSTRUCTION 
ORAL  TRADE  TESTS 

In  order  to  formulate  good  oral  trade  test  questions  of  the  one- 
word-answer  type  one  need  but  remember  the  simple  rule:  Decide 
first  what  is  to  be  the  answer  to  the  question,  and  then,  by  adminis- 
tration of  the  question  to  tradesman,  progressively  revise  the  form 
of  the  question  until  there  are  no  other  allowable  correct  answers 
than  the  expected  one  (or  synonomous  or  alternative  answers) . 

The  gain  in  objectiveness  of  administration  and  scoring  made 
possible  by  the  one-word-answer  oral  question  may  be  shown  by  the 
two  following  examples  of  army  oral  trade  tests  on  the  same  trade, 
issued  almost  a  year  apart.  The  first,  or  earlier  one,  has  the  advan- 
tage over  ordinary  tests  used  in  industry  of  being  compiled  from 
questions  which  have  been  given  a  standardization  tryout  on  work- 
men in  the  trade.  The  second,  or  later  one,  has  all  the  additional 
advantages  of  almost  perfect  objectivity  of  scoring. 

i.   ARMY  ORAL  TRADE  TEST— PATTERN-MAKER,  WOOD 

Issued  April  77,  1918 
I.    Why  is  draft  put  on  patterns? 

Ans.    To  enable  the  molder  or  foundryman  to  draw  the  pattern  cleanly  from 
the  mold  (sand).  Score  4. 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  21 

2.  What  is  meant  by  rechucking  a  piece  of  wood  in  the  lathe? 

Ans.    (i)  When  a  turned  piece  cannot  be  completed  in  one  operation,  it  is 

removed  from  the  lathe  and  set  up  again  in  such  a  position  that 

other  parts,  or  the  reverse  side  of  the  piece  can  be  turned.  Score  4. 

(2)    Reversing  and  turning  the  finished  side  toward  the  face  plate. 

Score  4. 

3.  What  is  the  least  draft  per  foot  in  good  molding  practice? 

Ans.    (i)  One-sixteenth  to  one-eighth  of  an  inch  per  foot.  Score  4. 

(2)  One-thirty-second  of  an  inch  per  foot.  Score  2. 

4.  What  are  two  advantages  of  skeleton  patterns? 
Ans.    (i)  a.  Save  labor. 

b.  Save  time. 

c.  Save  material.     (Any  two)  Score  4 

5.  When  gluing  up  stock  for  a  pattern,  which  sides  of  the  boards,  as  related  to 

their  position  in  the  tree,  should  be  placed  together  to  keep  the 
pattern  from  warping? 
Ans.   The  like  sides  (two  heart  sides)  (two  outsides).  Score  4. 

6.  Explain  how  to  glue  the  end  grain  of  wood. 

Ans.    (i)   Clean  the  grain,  size  with  hot  glue,  and  when  dry  coat  with  hot  glue; 

place  the  pieces  together  and  clamp.  Score  4. 

(2)   Size  it  with  glue  and  then  glue  it  again.     Rub  together;  glue  and 

clamp.  Score  4. 

7.  State  two  ways  provided  by  the  patternmakers  for  making  cores. 
Ans.    (i)  a.  By  core  boxes  (solid  boxes). 

b.  By  sweeps  (strickles).     (Both  required).  Score  4. 

8.  In  making  a  pattern  from  which  a  .brass  working  pattern  is  to  be  made,  how 

much  shrinkage  should  be  allowed  to  insure  the  proper  size  of 
gray  iron  castings  to  be  made  from  the  brass  pattern? 

Ans.  (i)  First  allow  3/16  inch  to  the  foot  to  take  care  of  shrinkage  of  brass 
pattern,  and  then  1/8  inch  to  the  foot  to  take  care  of  shrinkage 
on  gray  iron  castings  off  brass  pattern;  total  of  5/16  inch  allow- 
ance to  the  foot.  Score  4. 

(2)  5/1 6  inch.  Score  4. 

(3)  3/i 6  inch.  Score  o. 

9.  How  much  shrinkage  in  the  diameter  would  there  be  to  an  aluminum  cast- 

ing two  feet  in  diameter  and  one-half  inch  thick? 

Ans.    Three-eights  to  five-eighths  of  an  inch.  Score  4. 

10.    State  how  to  find  the  mitering  angle  for  any  number  of  arms  in  a  pattern 

for  a  wheel. 

Ans.  (i)  By  dividing  360  (the  number  of  degrees  in  a  circle)  by  the  number 
of  arms.  (NOTE:  specific  example  is  a  sufficient  answer). 

Score  4. 

(2)  Divide  the  periphery  or  circumference  of  the  pattern  into  as  many 

equal  parts  as  there  are  arms  on  the  wheel.  Score  4. 

(3)  With  trams  (dividers).  Score  2. 


22  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

ii.    In  making  a  solid  cylinder  pattern,  on  which  side  would  you  put  the  tapered 

core  print? 

Ans.  (i)    Cope  side.  Score  4. 

(2)   Drag  side.  Score  o. 

RATING  THE   CANDIDATE 

Rate  N     men  scoring  less  than  15. 
Rate  A—  men  scoring  16  and  17. 
Rate  A      men  scoring  18  to  31. 
Rate  A  +  men  scoring  32  and  33. 
Rate  J  —  men  scoring  34  and  35. 
Rate  J       men  scoring  36  to  39. 
Rate  J-f-  men  scoring  40  and  41. 
Rate  E      men  scoring  42  or  more. 
There  will  be  no  E—  or  E-}-  rating. 


2.   U.  S.  EMPLOYMENT  SERVICE  TECHNICAL  INTERVIEW. 
PATTERN-MAKER,  WOOD 


Issued  February  2, 

1.  What  wood,  besides  pine,  is  most  commonly  used  for  making  small  patterns? 
Ans.   Mahogany. 

2.  With  what  is  the  surface  of  a  pattern  coated  to  keep  it  from  getting  damp 

and  warping? 
Ans.   Shellac. 

3.  How  is  a  pattern  made  so  that  it  can  be  drawn  out  of  the  sand  easily? 
Ans.    Draft. 

4.  What  is  the  box  called  in  which  the  sand  for  a  mold  is  rammed  up? 
Ans.    Flask. 

5.  For  what  is  the  allowance  made  on  a  pattern-maker's  rule? 
Ans.   Shrinkage  (contraction). 

6.  What  do  you  call  the  part  of  the  pattern  which  is  above  the  parting  line  on  a 

two-part  flask? 
Ans.   Cope. 

7.  What  tool  do  you  use  to  lay  out  a  pattern  with  a  3-foot  radius? 
Ans.   Trammels. 

8.  In  making  a  large  ring  pattern,  what  are  the  separate  parts  called? 
Ans.   Segments. 

9.  What  do  you  call  a  mold  that  has  a  metal  face  to  harden  the  casting? 
Ans.    Chill. 

10,   What  do  you  put  on  a  pattern  to  support  the  core  in  the  proper  position? 
Ans.    Prints. 

EXAMINER:  Ask  at  least  six  questions;  more,  if  necessary,  to  accurately  judge 
the  candidate's  ability.  Score  only  the  results  of  the  six  questions  you  ask  first. 
Vary  as  much  as  possible  your  selection  of  the  first  six  questions. 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  23 

ASSEMBLY   AND    REVISION   OF    ORAL    TRADE    QUESTIONS    AND 
PICTURE    TRADE    TEST    QUESTIONS 

Before  assembling  any  questions  from  the  experts  in  the  field,  one 
should  first  determine  just  what  the  trade  is,  in  order  to  fit  the  ques- 
tions to  the  trade.  The  best  preparation  for  assembling  questions  on 
a  trade  is  the  acquirement  of  a  large  amount  of  knowledge  concern- 
ing the  trade. 

Ordinarily  from  three  to  five  experts  in  the  trade,  as  defined  below, 
should  be  employed  in  the  assembly  process.  Psychologically  the 
reason  for  this  is  simple;  what  will  not  be  thought  of  by  one  expert 
will  probably  be  thought  of  by  another,  so  that  ultimately,  by  the 
addition  of  but  a  few  questions  to  the  list  by  each  expert,  a  lengthy 
list  of  good  questions  can  be  secured.  The  questions  obtained  from 
Expert  No.  I  should  be  first  submitted  to  Expert  No.  2,  requiring 
him  to  answer  them  in  the  same  manner  as  if  the  questions  were 
being  asked  in  the  standardization  process.  The  answers  of  Expert 
No.  2  will  in  a  large  sense  indicate  whether  the  questions  submitted 
by  Expert  No.  I  are  ready  for  standardization.  Expert  No.  2  will 
obtain  an  adequate  idea  of  the  type  of  question  desired  from  thus 
seeing  what  questions  have  already  been  submitted.  If  Expert  No.  2 
fails  to  answer  any  question  submitted  by  Expert  No.  I,  this  ques- 
tion should  be  carefully  investigated  with  the  aid  of  Expert  No.  2  to 
discover  whether  it  was  a  lack  of  information  on  the  part  of  Expert 
No.  2  or  a  lack  of  clarity  in  the  question  which  prevented  his  under- 
standing what  was  meant.  In  the  latter  case,  it  may  be  necessary  to 
reword  the  question  many  times. 

Each  question  should  thus  progressively  get  better  and  better  as 
submitted  from  one  man  to  another  in  turn  in  the  assembly  process. 
If  necessary,  after  the  questions  have  been  submitted  to  some  two  or 
three  men  with  progressive  revision  by  the  examiner  (preferably 
retaining  the  unstandardizable  forms  of  questions)  the  questions 
should  be  taken  back  from  the  shop  to  the  office  and  be  typed.  Then 
whenever  successive  experts  fail  to  give  the  expected  answer,  the 
various  alternative  forms  hitherto  given  can  first  be  administered, 
finally  ending  by  securing  that  man's  contribution  to  another  revised 
form.  At  any  time  that  the  exact  expected  answer  is  not  immediately 
obtained  from  a  superior  workman,  the  difficulty  should  always  be 
investigated.  The  assembler  must  remember,  however,  that  even 
the  best  experts  should  fail  on  some  questions,  for  it  is  only  by  hav- 


24  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

ing  some  very  difficult  questions  that  the  expert  can  be  picked 
out. 

Having  secured,  by  progressive  revision,  an  acceptable  set  of 
questions,  the  questions  should  be  typed  ready  for  standardization. 
Out  of,  say,  one  hundred  questions  secured  from  the  first  three  ex- 
perts, at  least  forty  or  fifty  of  the  best  questions  should  have  stood 
the  test  of  revision  and  be  acceptable  for  standardization.  The  final 
selection  of  this  set  of  fifty  questions  is  made  by  a  final  administra- 
tion of  the  questions  to  a  "critical"  examiner  in  the  office,  preferably 
a  person  who  has  had  standardizing  experience  in  various  trades,  and 
who  has  had  some  assembly  experience  on  this  particular  trade.  The 
answers  to  the  entire  set  of  questions,  when  this  person  attempts  to 
guess  all  possible  correct  and  incorrect,  sensible  and  absurd  answers 
to  each  question,  combined  with  the  joint  judgment  of  the  assembler 
and  examiner  as  to  whether  an  adequate  sampling  of  the  various 
aspects  of  the  trade  has  been  made  and  whether  the  questions  are 
short  enough  to  be  quickly  and  easily  administered,  will  be  adequate 
enough  for  making  the  final  selection  of  fifty  questions  for  standard- 
ization. The  critical  examiner,  upon  being  told  the  true  expected 
answer,  should  attempt  to  guess  synonymous  or  ambiguous  alter- 
native answers.  If,  then,  the  assembler's  questions  have  been  so 
worded  as  to  pin  the  guesser  to  "I  don't  know,"  to  the  correct  answer 
if  known,  or  to  an  admittedly  random  guess,  they  are  ready  for  typ- 
ing for  standardization.  It  is  preferable  to  arrange  the  questions  in 
their  seeming  order  of  difficulty,  the  easiest  first.  Even  a  very  ex- 
perienced assembler  will  often  make  very  bad  mistakes  in  his  judg- 
ment of  the  difficulty  of  particular  questions.  However,  a  few  easy 
questions,  put  at  the  beginning  of  the  list,  are  desirable  to  set  at 
ease  the  subjects  used  for  standardization. 

STANDARDIZATION 

Standardization,  according  to  any  procedure,  consists  in  admin- 
istering the  entire  set  of  standardization  questions,  say  fifty  in  num- 
ber, to  a  group  of  tradesmen  and  non- tradesmen,  of  four  classes  of 
known  ability,  defined  as  follows: 

NOVICE:  A  person  totally  without  formal  trade  experience.  Used  as  a  check  on 
examinations  to  make  certain  that  the  answers  to  questions  cannot  be  guessed  by 
an  intelligent  non-tradesman. 

APPRENTICE:  A  beginner  or  learner  in  the  trade,  as  determined  by  length  of 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  25 

experience  in  the  trade,  the  kind  of  shop,  and  the  foreman's  opinion  of  a  man.  This 
does  not  necessarily  coincide  with  the  formal  four  or  five  years  period  of  appren- 
ticeship of  the  trade  unions  but  recognizes  the  fact  that  apprentices  of  exceptional 
ability  and  two  years  experience  may  be  more  valuable  workmen  than  some 
journeymen  of  less  intelligence  and  a  larger  number  of  years  of  experience.  In 
terms  of  experience  alone,  following  the  army  practice,  in  no  trade  is  more  than 
five  years  experience  required  for  a  person  of  average  ability  to  become  a  journey- 
man. The  word  "average"  is  to  be  noted  here  as  recognizing  the  only  point  of  view 
consistent  with  the  facts  of  the  distribution  of  human  abilities.  Concretely,  this 
means  that  in  answer  to  such  questions  as,  "How  long  does  it  take  to  learn  this 
trade?"  one  can  consistently  answer  by  stating  how  long  on  the  average  it  takes  a 
person  of  average  ability  to  learn  the  trade.  Statements  of  time  required  to  learn  a 
trade  have  no  meaning  unless  one  considers  human  ability  as  a  variable  quantity 
and  unless  the  particular  degree  of  ability  to  learn  is  specified  as  well. 

JOURNEYMAN:  A  workman  past  the  apprenticeship  period,  but  not  yet  an 
expert.  A  practical  criterion  for  journeyman  is:  not  capable  of  working  alone 
without  directions  or  not  capable  of  giving  orders  to  others.  A  man  with  the 
requisite  experience  in  years  for  an  expert  but  not  so  classed  by  his  foreman  is  to  be 
considered  as  a  journeyman. 

EXPERT:  A  man  past  a  definite  stated  minimum  number  of  years  of  experience, 
varying  with  the  trade  considered,  and  in  addition  so  classed  by  his  foreman.  In 
the  army  work,  a  foreman  of  a  shop  was  nearly  always  classed  as  an  expert.  A 
man  capable  of  acting  as  a  foreman,  or  capable  of  working  alone  on  difficult  jobs 
without  directions  from  others,  was  ordinarily  also  classed  as  an  expert. 

It  can  be  readily  seen  that  there  are  no  sharp  dividing  lines  be- 
tween these  trade  classes  in  just  the  same  way  as  there  are  no  sharp 
dividing  lines  between  the  normal  and  backward,  or  backward  and 
feeble-minded  in  intelligence.  The  expert  is  but  a  higher  degree 
journeyman;  the  journeyman  but  a  higher  degree  apprentice.  Even 
the  line  between  tradesman  and  non-tradesman  is  not  so  sharp  as  it 
appears  at  first  glance;  a  tradesman  of  but  three  days'  experience  is 
but  a  novice  for  nearly  all  trade  test  purposes;  and  many  persons 
may  possibly  be  found,  such  as  vocational  guidance  experts,  mechan- 
ical engineers,  and  the  like,  who  have  a  smattering  of  knowledge  in 
many  trades.  There  is  no  difference  of  "stuff"  out  of  which  these 
different  classes  of  men  are  made.  These  classes  are  but  arbitrary 
classes  which  are  to  be  fairly  well  recognized  in  some  trades,  at 
least,  as  forming  the  promotional  steps  of  a  workman  whenever 
these  promotional  steps  are  based  upon  trade  ability  and  not  upon 
mere  number  of  years  of  experience.  In  some  trades  the  expert  may 
have  a  radically  different  type  of  work  to  do,  at  least  a  part  of  the 
time,  than  the  journeyman;  while  in  others  the  apprentice  may  have 


26  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

a  radically  different  type  of  work  from  the  journeyman.  The  appren- 
tice bricklayer,  so  far  as  trade  tests  are  concerned,  is  the  hod  carrier; 
the  apprentice  riveter,  for  the  same  purposes,  is  the  "heater  up." 
These  are  artificial  distinctions  and  may  not  be  agreed  to  by  the 
workmen  in  the  trade.  Where  they  occur,  they  are  very  valuable  for 
distinguishing  the  various  classes  of  men.  In  many  cases  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  decide  in  which  status  to  put  a  given  man;  in  such  cases  all 
possible  evidence  should  be  taken  into  account  and  the  men  classified 
according  to  the  best  judgment  thus  resulting.  Evidently,  to  be 
scientific,  this  rating  of  men  must  be  complete  before  any  tests  are 
given.  The  best  practice,  moreover,  if  it  is  possible  thus  to  secure 
sufficient  subjects  for  standardization,  is  to  select  only  men  who  are 
cleancut  examples  of  journeymen,  apprentices  and  experts. 

Next  we  should  consider  the  number  of  men  of  each  such  class  to 
whom  the  questions  should  be  administered  in  standardization.  In 
the  army,  an  effort  was  made  at  first  to  administer  the  standardiza- 
tion questions  to  twenty  each  of  apprentices,  journeymen  and  ex- 
perts and  to  forty  novices.  Later  experience  showed  that  even  with 
the  total  resources  of  all  workers  in  a  great  manufacturing  district 
such  as  Newark  or  Pittsburgh  to  draw  from,  often  not  over  a  half 
dozen  apprentices  were  to  be  found.  The  requirements  in  numbers 
were  therefore  changed  as  follows:  40  novices,  10  apprentices,  30 
journeymen,  and  20  experts.  These  proportions  conform  more 
nearly  to  the  proportions  in  which  the  various  classes  are  to  be  found 
in  industry.  Not  so  large  a  proportion  of  experts  are  generally  to  be 
found  in  any  one  shop.  In  a  single  shop,  making  up  tests  for  the 
employment  office  of  that  shop,  it  will  often  be  necessary  to  test  all 
men  in  the  shop  if  time  permits.  If  there  are,  say,  two  rooms  and 
twice  as  many  men  as  it  seems  desirable  to  test,  the  best  results  will 
be  obtained  if  an  impartial  sampling  is  taken  of  the  men  in  both 
rooms,  such  a  sampling  as  is  to  be  easily  obtained  by  testing  all  men 
in  Room  I  whose  last  names  begin  with  A  to  J  inclusive,  and  in 
Room  2  all  men  whose  last  names  begin  with  K  to  Z  inclusive. 

The  order  in  which  the  various  groups  are  tested  is  worth  consider- 
ing. Preferably  a  few  apprentices  are  to  be  tested  first.  A  low  per- 
centage of  "passes"  insures  that  the  test  is  difficult  enough  to  differ- 
entiate between  different  grades  of  ability.  These  should  be  followed 
by  tests  of  a  few  experts.  Ordinarily  there  should  be  no  overlapping 
in  total  crude  scores  between  these  two  groups.  If  overlapping 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  27 

appears,  the  test  must  be  critically  examined,  since  it  is  then  likely 
to  be  unsatisfactory. 

Following  the  administration  of  the  questions  to  the  men  of  differ- 
ent classes  of  ability  the  questions  are  each  statistically  evaluated, 
only  those  being  retained  for  the  final  examination  set  which  fulfill 
the  requirements  of  (i)  statistically  differentiating  between  the 
different  degrees  of  trade  ability,  a  graded  series  of  difficulties  being 
used ;  (2)  being  administratively  acceptable  as  questions  which  will 
readily  be  answered  as  expected  by  a  majority  of  expert  tradesmen. 

PICTURE   TRADE   TESTS 

Picture  trade  tests  are  constructed  in  almost  the  same  way.  Since 
they  are  but  oral  tests,  making  use  of  pictures  in  place  of  descrip- 
tive phrases  or  definitions,  all  the  points  previously  mentioned 
in  respect  to  oral  trade  tests  apply  to  the  picture  tests. 

Care  should  be  taken  so  to  word  the  questions  that  the  exact  point 
of  a  picture  referred  to  by  the  question  shall  be  immediately  recog- 
nized by  the  subject  without  requiring  the  examiner  to  point  to  any 
part  of  the  picture.  Care  must  therefore  be  taken  that  the  pictures 
used  for  illustration  be  clearcut  pictures.  It  is  often  possible  to  secure 
pictures,  clipped  from  trade  catalogs,  which  will  clearly  illustrate 
certain  parts  of  machines  and  not  others;  in  these  cases,  the  ques- 
tions should  refer  only  to  the  clear  part  of  the  picture,  other  pictures 
being  secured  to  illustrate  the  other  parts  of  the  machine.  Of  par- 
ticular value  are  the  pictures  often  found  in  catalogs,  used  to  illus- 
trate special  appliances  of  machines,  in  which  the  background  of  the 
machine  is  purposely  faded  out  in  the  photographic  process  to  make 
the  desired  part  of  the  machine  stand  out  clear  and  distinct. 

There  is  little  advantage  in  having  photographs  specially  made  for 
a  picture  test.  Ordinarily  a  very  great  abundance  of  good  pictures  of 
machines  and  parts  may  be  found  in  trade  catalogs.  White  ink,  con- 
taining china  white,  is  to  be  used  for  blotting  out  any  undesirable 
lines,  lettering  or  unessential  backgrounds  on  the  catalog  pictures. 
The  pictures  used  for  the  final  series  should  not,  in  general,  show 
any  more  details  of  the  machinery  than  is  necessary  to  illustrate 
the  principles  to  which  the  questions  refer.  For  instance,  if  one 
desires  merely  the  name  of  a  toolrone  should  select  a  picture  which 
gives  merely  the  outside  outlines  of  the  tool.  In  preparing  catalog 
pictures  for  being  photographed,  care  must  also  be  taken  to  see  that 


28  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

photographs  which  have  been  originally  photographed  and  devel- 
oped "light"  or  "dark"  are  arranged  together  if  best  results  are  to  be 
obtained. 

The  assembler  of  picture  trade  tests  must  usually  know  more  of 
the  trade  than  is  required  of  the  assembler  of  oral  tests,  since  the 
former  is  required  to  judge  largely  for  himself  which  pictures  are 
best  to  use.  This  applies  also  to  performance  tests,  wherein  the 
assembler  must  be  reasonably  competent  to  judge  whether  a  pro- 
jected task  involves  enough  of  the  essential  tools  and  operations  of  a 
trade  to  be  a  fair  sampling  of  the  tradesman's  skill  and  knowledge. 

Once  assembled  and  revised  in  a  manner  identical  with  that  used 
in  revision  of  an  oral  trade  test,  the  picture  test  is  ready  for  stand- 
ardization. If  both  forms  of  the  test  are  being  constructed,  much 
time  may  be  saved,  and  a  comparison  of  the  respective  reliabilities  of 
the  two  forms  of  test  may  be  secured,  by  standardizing  both  forms  of 
the  test  on  the  same  subjects  at  the  same  standardization  examination. 

Picture  tests  are  not  ordinarily  made  with  the  expectation  that 
they  will  be  better  or  quicker  methods  of  examination  than  the  oral 
method.  Rather  is  their  value  to  be  sought  in  overcoming  language 
difficulty  or  in  checking  up  on  suspected  cases  of  coaching.  To  secure 
the  same  amount  of  information  in  regard  to  literate  applicants' 
trade  abilities,  the  picture  test  usually  requires  more  time  than  the 
oral  test.  The  generally  safe  rule  to  follow,  when  in  doubt  whether 
to  use  a  picture  or  oral  test,  is  to  use  both. 

PERFORMANCE   TESTS 

Performance  tests  are  more  like  picture  tests  than  like  oral  tests. 
The  elements  for  a  performance  test  are  chosen  in  much  the  same 
way  as  elements,  suitable  for  reproduction  by  pictures,  are  chosen  for  a 
picture  test,  the  only  difference  being  that  such  tasks  nust  be  chosen 
as  will  lend  themselves  to  easily  and  objectively  measurable  scoring 
points.  For  measurement  of  the  finished  products  a  series  of  "limit" 
gages  each  varying  from  the  preceding  by  thousandths  or  half- 
thousandths  is  preferable  to  the  use  of  micrometers  with  their  great 
possibilities  for  subjective  errors  of  the  scorer.  Statistically,  the 
ordinary  limit  gages  of  "dimension  =*=  .001"  are  as  poor  a  measure  of 
a  product  for  test  purposes  as  dividing  all  humanity  into  short,  tall 
and  medium  people.  Thus  partial  credits  are  allowable,  logical  and 
necessary  for  best  results  in  performance  tests,  which  is  not  true  in 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  29 

case  of  the  oral  or  picture  tests  where  the  burden  of  partial  credits 
should  be  thrown  upon  the  assembler  who  is  to  be  compelled  to  as- 
semble clear,  understandable  questions. 

In  the  progressive  assembly  of  performance  tests,  it  is  desirable  to 
make  use  of  both  apprentices  and  experts,  in  order  to  determine  what 
scoring  points  will  yield  differentiation  of  trade  classes.  Any  scoring 
point  which  yields  much  overlapping  of  these  classes  is  likely  to  be  of 
little  value,  although  more  leeway  may  be  allowed  here  than  in  the 
case  of  either  of  the  other  two  forms  of  test.  The  product  must  be 
changed  and  rechanged  during  revision  until  a  scorable  and  diag- 
nostic product  is  discovered.  Since  a  product  is  limited  in  its  number 
of  dimensions,  it  will  be  seen  how  difficult  it  is  to  devise  a  good  per- 
formance test.  Scoring  points  in  regard  to  tools  used,  manner  of 
holding  tools,  and  the  like, — deviating  from  the  desirable  method  of 
scoring  only  on  the  finished  product,  which  method  does  not  require 
the  services  of  an  observer  while  the  product  is  being  produced, — 
must  often  be  resorted  to  in  this  form  of  test,  in  order  to  get  enough 
scoring  points  to  differentiate  adequately  between  different  classes  of 
workmen.  The  time  required  for  the  total  operation  must  always  be 
carefully  taken  and  preserved,  quality  and  quantity  of  production 
being  the  two  generalized  measures  of  the  workman's  skill  in  fash- 
ioning his  product.  The  norms  are  always  to  be  given  in  terms  of 
quality  X  produced  in  time  Y,  or  some  composite  index  involving 
both  of  these  variables.  This  is  not  necessary  in  the  case  of  either  oral 
or  picture  tests  as  the  tests  are  given  without  a  time  limit,  emphasis 
being  placed  upon  the  workman's  "possession  or  non-possession"  of 
the  "essential"  elements  of  trade  knowledge  and  skill.  Since  the  oral 
and  picture  tests  have  not  been  given  with  a  time-limit,  it  is  pos- 
sible that  with  them  also,  better  results  might  be  obtained  by  reading 
the  questions  at  a  definite,  predetermined  rate  and  requiring  the 
applicant  to  write  his  answers  within  a  given  number  of  seconds. 

Copious  notes,  in  addition  to  a  minimum  number  of  standard 
recorded  observations  of  the  standardization  on  workmen,  should  be 
taken  in  the  standardization  of  performance  tests.  The  best  per- 
formance test  is  one  in  which  mere  measurements  of  the  product  will 
yield  the  desired  differentiation;  but  if  the  final  statistical  evalua- 
tion should  show  that  the  workman's  selection  of  tools,  manner  of 
handling  tools,  etc.,  are  required  as  scoring  points,  these  will  be  val- 
ueless unless  carefully  taken  for  every  workman  used  in  standardiza- 


3O  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

tion.  For  the  assembly  process,  twice  as  much  time  should  be  used 
for  the  performance  tests  as  for  the  oral  or  picture  tests.  Several 
times  as  long  will  of  necessity  be  taken  for  both  standardization  and 
scoring,  not  to  mention  a  proportionately  longer  time  in  the  admin- 
istration. In  all  trades  save  a  very  few  which  are  almost  wholly  mat- 
ters of  skill,  such  as  that  of  automobile  driver  and  stenographer,  per- 
formance tests  have  yielded  per  unit  of  time  spent  in  examination  or 
original  assembly  and  standardization  but  a  fraction  of  the  examina- 
tion value  yielded  by  oral  or  picture  tests.  They  have,  from  every 
viewpoint  save  that  of  dispelling  an  obstinate  foreman's  prejudice 
that  "a  man  should  be  tested  by  giving  him  a  job  to  do,"  but  little 
claim  to  merit  as  tests  for  most  tradesmen. 

THE   WRITTEN   TRADE   TEST 

In  the  standardization  process  the  administration  of  the  questions 
to  novices  by  means  of  written  examinations  proved  highly  successful 
in  the  army  procedure.  This  is  due,  no  doubt,  largely  to  the  fact  that, 
for  practical  purposes,  novices  may  be  categorically  classified  as 
"knowing"  or  "not  knowing"  the  items  of  information  called  for  in  the 
oral  questions.  If  unable  to  answer  them,  they  were  seldom  willing 
to  make  guesses.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  found  that  trades- 
men are  very  likely  to  question  the  correctness  of  some  of  the  ques- 
tions used,  and  it  seems  doubtful  whether  the  method  would  have  so 
high  a  degree  of  success  with  tradesmen  as  with  non-tradesmen. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  probably  the  case  that  much  of  the  prejudice  of  the 
army  camp  examiners  against  a  written  method  was  the  result  of 
the  reflection  of  the  point  of  view  of  the  practical  man  in  industry, 
namely  that  "a  man  may  be  able  to  tell  about  his  trade,  but  not  be 
able  to  write  about  it."  One  can  readily  see  that  this  is  but  an  exten- 
sion of  the  belief  of  such  persons  that  a  workman  lay  be  able  to  do  a 
job,  but  not  to  talk  about  it.  Statistics  would  probably  show  that 
there  is  a  high  correlation  not  only  between  trade  skill  and  ability  to 
talk  about  the  trade,  if  the  proper  questions  are  used,  but  also  be- 
tween trade  skill  and  ability  to  write  about  the  trade,  if,  again,  the 
proper  questions  are  used. 

The  chief  value  in  using  any  written  trade  test  method,  is,  of 
course,  the  saving  that  results  both  in  the  actual  examination  time 
and  in  the  time  required  to  score  the  subject's  replies.  One  examiner 
can  examine  five  hundred  men  by  written  methods  almost  as  quickly 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  31 

as  a  single  man  by  oral  methods.  The  scoring  may  be  done  with  great 
rapidity  by  stencil  and  by  clerical  help.  Again,  if  the  questions  have 
been  adequately  standardized  before  administration,  a  definite,  pre- 
determined set  of  answers  eliminates  all  subjective  judgment  on  the 
part  of  the  scorer. 

One  further  advantage,  only  slightly  used  in  school  examinations, 
is  the  possibility  of  examining  large  numbers  of  persons  at  one  time, 
allowing  all  who  are  evidently  well  above  the  minimum  basis,  to  pass 
without  further  question  and  reserving  those  who  make  low  marks 
for  further  detailed  individual  examination  by  oral  or  other  methods. 
Of  all  the  above  methods  of  trade  examination,  the  one-word-answer 
form  of  test  is  probably  most  readily  adaptable  to  vocational  school 
use.  The  only  material  needed  for  their  assembly  is  paper  and  pencil. 
The  questions,  either  printed  or  mimeographed  with  blank  spaces 
following  each  question  for  the  answer,  are  almost  self-administra- 
tive. The  scoring  is  thoroughly  objective  and  rapidly  done  by  means 
of  stencil.  This  form  of  test  is  being  given  a  thorough  trial  in  the 
army  E.  and  R.  schools,  both  in  tests  of  vocational  aptitude  and  as 
final  examinations,  or  tests  of  proficiency. 

Another  form  of  written  test,  easily  adaptable  to  vocational  school 
use  because  of  its  extreme  ease  of  construction,  is  the  multiple  choice 
test.  This  test  has  not  yet  been  given  sufficient  trial  to  have  its  merits 
actually  determined.  Among  its  obvious  advantages  are: 

(i)  The  elimination  of  all  writing.  (2)  The  administration  of  more 
questions  per  unit  of  examination  time.  (3)  Perfect  objectivity  in 
scoring,  which  is  done  by  stencil.  (4)  Less  scoring  time  per  question 
than  by  the  recall  or  picture  method.  (5)  The  possibility  of  using 
questions  not  adaptable  to  the  oral  or  picture  method,  of  discriminat- 
ing between  good  and  bad  practice,  and  of  making  judgments  as  to 
the  more  preferable  of  two  or  more  alternative  methods,  and  the  like. 

Some  light  on  the  relative  merits  of  these  various  methods  will  be 
provided  by  the  results,  of  the  following  three  experiments. 

THE  BRICKLAYERS'  TEST 

An  opportunity  was  given,  through  the  courtesy  of  the  Pittsburgh 
Bricklayers'  Union,  to  experiment  with  a  written  bricklayers'  exam- 
ination devised  on  the  well-known  multiple  choice  method.1 

1  Chapman,  J.  C.  and  Toops,  H.  A.  "A  written  Trade  Test:  Multiple  Choice 
Method,"  Journal  of  Applied  Psychology,  Vol.  3,  No.  4,  1919,  pp.  358-365. 


32  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

The  men  were  all  examined  in  one  large  assembly  hall.  There  was 
therefore  no  possibility  of  arriving  at  incontestable  measures  of  each 
man's  trade  status.  Four  questions  requiring  definite  answers  in 
regard  to  each  man's  trade  experience  and  trade  leadership  ability 
were  typed  at  the  top  of  each  test  blank,  and  were  answered  by  all. 
These  answers  were  subjectively  evaluated  independently  by  two 
examiners  and  the  status  thereby  determined.  It  is  not  to  be  ex- 
pected that  this  method  would  result  in  a  status  comparable  to  the 
status  given  a  man  by  his  foreman,  since  there  is  present  the  element 
of  a  man's  personal  judgment  of  himself,  and  this  is  known  to  be 
highly  unreliable.  Various  methods  of  selection  of  questions  were 
tried  out.  It  is  unnecessary  to  give  here  the  detailed  explanations  of 
the  procedure.  The  following  principles  seem  to  be  justified  as  a 
result  of  this  experiment : 

1.  A  few  extremely  bad  questions  will  not  appreciably  change  the 
relative  marks  of  men  if  a  large  number  of  questions  is  used. 

2.  To  secure  the  same  differentiating  ability  this  method  of  test- 
ing would  seem  to  require  a  larger  number  of  questions  than  with  the 
corresponding  oral  form  of  test. 

3.  The  eighteen  best  questions,  chosen  as  conforming  to  the  ideal 
type  of  graph  distribution  of  correct  answers,1  are  considerably  better 
in  differentiating  the  known  groups  into  their  proper  classes  than  the 
entire  set  of  sixty- two  unselected  questions. 

4.  Other  things  being  equal,  the  larger  the  number  of  difficult 
questions  in  a  written  test,  the  better  the  test.    Statistically  this 
amounts  merely  to  a  restatement  of  the  principle  that  the  greatest 
reliability  of  individual  scores  is  obtained  when  fifty  per  cent  of  a 
given  test  group  pass  and  fifty  per  cent  fail  a  given  question. 

5.  Too  many  easy  questions,  as  also  too  small  a  total  number  of 
questions,  tend  to  cause  (a)  novices  and  apprentices  to  occupy  too 
much  space  in  the  total  scoring  range  and  (b)  journeymen  and  ex- 
perts to  "pile  up"  in  the  upper  limits  of  the  scoring  points.   It  follows 
from  the  principles  above  enumerated  that  a  large  number  of  easy 
questions  may,  under  certain  conditions,  be  more  generally  efficient 
than  a  very  much  smaller  number  of  difficult  questions. 

6.  The  results  from  the  novices,  persons  so  chosen  that  they 
should  have  been  able  to  answer  many  of  the  questions  if  such  ques- 

1  "The  Making  of  a  Trade  Test,"  Personnel,  Vol.  i,  No.  7,  1918. 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  33 

tions  are  capable  of  being  guessed  easily,  show  that  this  type  of 
examination  cannot  be  "bluffed." 

7.  The  tradesman  are,  however,  unwilling  to  make  random 
guesses  in  this  type  of  examination  if  they  are  uncertain  of  the  cor- 
rect answer.  For  this  reason  it  seems  that  little  is  to  be  gained  by 
scoring  the  test  by  any  arbitrary  scoring  formula  such  as  5  =  R  —  W. 
Especially  when  given  with  a  work  limit,  as  was  this  test  is  the 
discount  for  the  guessing  privilege  unnecessary,  since  the  relative 
ranks  of  the  men  remain  the  same,  all  questions  being  presumably 
attempted  by  all  men.  If,  however,  the  test  were  to  be  given  as  a 
time  limit  test,  a  scoring  formula  might  always  yield  better 
results  than  by  counting  as  the  score  the  Rights  alone.  The  best 
theoretical  discount,  of  course,  is  that  discount  which  would  be 
determined  by  solving  for  C  in  the  scoring  formula  S—R—C-W,  in 
which  C  is  a  constant,  the  ratio  of  the  partial  regression  coefficient 
of  W,  divided  by  the  partial  regression  coefficient  of  R,  with  5  as  an 
independent  criterion  of  the  measure  of  trade  ability  of  the  men 
tested. 

THE  FARMERS'  TEST 

To  further  test  the  multiple-choice  plan  of  written  examination,  a 
farmers'  test  was  similarly  prepared.  The  one  hundred  and  thirteen 
questions  evaluated  in  standardization  are  shown  below. 

This  test  represents  the  one  hundred  and  thirteen  questions  left 
for  evaluation  after  seventeen  of  the  original  questions  had  been  at 
once  discarded  as  a  result  of  the  administration  of  the  questions  to 
farmers,  and  later  two  more,  Nos.  84  and  85,  of  the  list  of  one 
hundred  and  fifteen  originally  retained. 

The  numbers  in  the  right-hand  margin  indicate  the  number  of  the 
four  choices  which  is  the  correct  answer  as  judged  by  Ohio  farmers. 

FARMERS'  TEST 

Each  of  the  numbered  questions  below  can  be  made  to  read  correctly  when  one 
of  the  four  words  in  the  parentheses  is  underscored.  Underscore  the  one  proper 
word  which  will  make  the  sentence  read  correctly.  Do  not  underscore  more  than 
one  word.  If  you  are  not  sure  which  word  is  right,  make  the  best  guess  you  can; 
you  will  be  discounted  if  you  do  not  answer  every  question.  You  may  have  all  the 
time  you  wish  but  accuracy  is  highly  important.  The  two  samples  are  marked 
correctly. 

|  A.    The  end-gate  is  part  of  a  (barn,  fence,  wagon,  buggy). 

\  B.    The  Berkshire  is  a  breed  of  (sheep,  horses,  cattle,  hogs). 


34  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

INFORMATION  QUESTIONS: 

1.  The  Babcock  Test  is  used  to  determine  (the  health  of  an  animal,  the  con- 

dition of  the  soil,  strength  of  a  solution,  butter-fat  of  milk) 4 

2.  A  hame  is  part  of  a  (binder,  tractor,  harness,  potato-digger) 3 

3.  A  scythe  is  usually  driven  by  (steam-power,  electric-power,  horse-power, 

hand-power) 4 

4.  A  hay-tedder  is  used  in  (loading,  drying,  baling,  unloading)  hay  ....  2 

5.  The  Guernsey  is  a  breed  of  (turkey,  sheep,  cattle,  horse) 3 

6.  Hens  usually  set  on  (6,  10,  15,  20)  eggs 3 

7.  A  cow  gives  milk  from  (2,  4,  6,  12)  teats      2 

8.  In  driving  a  team,  the  command,  "Haw,"  means  to  (turn  to  the  left,  turn 

to  the  right,  go  straight  ahead,  back  up) I 

9.  Acid  phosphate  is  a  (drug,  food,  drink,  fertilizer) 4 

10.  Ensilage  is  a  (feed,  flower,  tool,  disease) i 

11.  A  whiffletree  is  a  (plant,  tool,  animal,  part  of  a  wagon) 4 

12.  Roup  is  (part  of  a  harness,  a  garden  vegetable,  disease  of  chickens,  a 

stock  food)      3 

13.  Gaps  is  a  disease  of  (poultry,  sheep,  cattle,  swine)      i 

14.  The  first  crop  planted  in  spring  is  (corn,  oats,  beans,  buckwheat)   ...  2 

15.  An  average  yield  of  wheat  per  acre  is  (10,  18,  30,  50)  bushels 2 

16.  A  capon  is  a  (chicken,  fruit,  garden-vegetable,  field-crop) i 

17.  Corn  is  planted  in  (March,  May,  June,  July)      2 

1 8.  Corn  stover  is  used  in  feeding  (chickens,  cattle,  hogs,  poultry)    ....  2 

19.  Casein  comes  from  (meat,  milk,  corn,  fruit) 2 

20.  The  deepest-rooted  forage  plant  is  (timothy,  clover,  alfalfa,  millet)    .    .  3 

21.  The  most  hardy  fruit  is  the  (apple,  peach,  plum,  cherry)      i 

22.  Chess,  or  cheat,  injures  (oats,  barley,  rye,  wheat) 4 

23.  A  horse  is  usually  broken  to  work  at  age  of  (2,  3,  4,  5)  years 2 

24.  A  good  yield  of  hay  is  (i,  2,  3,  4)  tons  per  acre 2 

25.  The  longest  strawed  grain  is  (wheat,  barley,  rye,  oats)      3 

26.  A  good  hand  will  husk  (25,  50,  100,  150)  bushels  of  corn  in  a  day       .    .  2 

27.  The  heaviest  milking  breed  of  cows  is  (Jersey,  Hereford,  Shorthorn,  Hoi- 

stein) 4 

28.  Animals  that  chew  the  cud  are  (horses,  hogs,  cattle,  dogs) 3 

29.  A  snath  is  the  handle  of  a  (plow,  rake,  fork,  scythe)      4 

30.  Legumes  are  a  (family  of  plants,  part  of  a  harness,  fixtures  in  a  stable, 

attachment  to  a  corn-shredder) i 

31.  A  man  and  team  should  be  able  to  care  for  and  cultivate  (10,  40,  60,  80) 

acres  of  corn  in  a  season 2 

32.  One  breed  of  hogs  is  the  (Hereford,  Minorca,  Merino,  Duroc)     ....  4 

33.  Wheat  is  cut  with  a  (mowing-machine,  scythe,  binder,  rolling-cutter)    .  3 

34.  A  common  make  of  binder  is  (Iver- Johnson,  McCormick,  Ford,  Racine)  2 

35.  A  tool  used  in  cultivating  a  garden  is  (sulky,  drill,  hoe,  roller)     ....  3 

36.  The  kind  of  horse  most  used  on  a  farm  is  (road,  coach,  draft,  race)    .    .  3 

37.  A  good  cow  feed  is  (straw,  alfalfa,  timothy-hay,  oats) 2 

38.  A  good  hog  feed  is  (corn,  fodder,  sorghum,  peas) i 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  35 

39.  A  fowl  used  on  most  farms  is  (chicken,  goose,  turkey,  pheasant)     .    .    .  i 

40.  A  tool  used  in  hay-making  is  (binder,  mower,  scythe,  harrow)     ....  2 

41.  Field  corn  ripens  in  (June,  July,  September,  November) 3 

42.  Winter  wheat  ripens  in  (March,  April,  July,  October) 3 

43.  In  preparing  ground  for  seeding,  a  farmer  uses  (harrow,  seed  drill,  seeder, 

subsoiler) i 

44.  Hay  should  be  cured  (i5-minutes,  3O-minutes,   i-day,   i-week)  before 

being  put  in  the  mow 3 

45.  A  rolling  coulter  is  part  of  a  (harrow,  binder,  rake,  plow) 4 

46.  A  share  is  part  of  a  (binder,  harrow,  plow,  tedder) 3 

47.  A  doubletree  is  part  of  a  (harness,  wagon,  sprayer,  posthole-digger)   .    .  2 

48.  Ditching  can  be  done  most  easily  in  (spring,  summer,  autumn,  winter)  i 

49.  Cows  are  usually  milked  (2,  3,  4,  5)  times  a  day i 

50.  A  fat  market  hog  will  weigh  about  (50,  100,  250,  500)  pounds     ....  3 

51.  An  average  feeding  steer  will  weigh  (300,  600,  900,  1200)  pounds    ...  3 

52.  A  moldboard  is  part  of  a  (scythe,  engine,  plow,  corn-cutter) 3 

53.  A  swath  is  made  by  a  (harrow,  plow,  binder,  mowing-machine)       ...  4 

54.  A  pitman  rod  is  part  of  a  (mowing-machine,  corn-planter,  roller,  double- 

tree)       i 

55.  A  disk  is  part  of  a  (roller,  roll-cutter,  binder,  mowing-machine)       ...  2 

56.  .A  reel  is  part  of  a  (mowing-machine,  binder,  roller,  disk-cutter)      ...  2 

57.  A  drag  (has  shafts,  has  a  tongue,  is  tongueless,  has  a  pole) 3 

58.  A  6-foot  binder  is  pulled  by  (2,  3,  5,  7)  horses 2 

59.  Tomato  plants  should  be  planted  about  (i,  2,  4,  8)  feet  apart  in  the  row  3 

60.  Vinegar  is  made  from  (grapes,  blackberries,  raspberries,  apples)      ...  4 
01.   Hog  house  doors  should  be  at  least  (i,  i>£,  i^»  2>£)  feet  high    ....  4 

62.  Sheep  are  best  raised  on  (wet,  level,  hilly,  weedy)  ground 3 

63.  A  field  from  which  the  wheat  has  been  cut  is  called  a  (wheat-field,  pas- 

ture, meadow,  stubble-field) 4 

64.  There  are  (40,  60,  100,  160)  square  rods  in  an  acre 4 

65.  A  jobber  is  sometimes  used  to  plant  (wheat,  corn,  oats,  rye) 2 

66.  A  clevis  is  part  of  a  (scythe,  doubletree,  jobber,  clover-seeder)     ....  2 

67.  A  kingbolt  is  part  of  a  (wagon,  automobile,  harrow,  buggy) i 

68.  A  plant  grown  both  for  pies  and  for  cow-feed  is  (rhubarb,  peas,  pump- 

kins, turnips) 3 

69.  Post  holes  should  be  dug  (i,  3,  5,  7)  feet  deep 2 

70.  It  requires  (i,  2,  3,  4)  bushels  of  oats  to  seed  an  acre 2 

71.  The  first  crop  harvested  in  a  season  is  (timothy,  oats,  clover,  winter- 

wheat)     3 

72.  Pigs  are  usually  weaned  at  the  age  of  (2,  6,  10,  15)  weeks 3 

73.  Pigs  at  birth  weigh  about  (i,  3,  4,  5)  pounds 2 

74.  The  incubation  period  for  chicken's  eggs  is  (2,  3,  4,  6)  weeks 2 

75.  A  team  plows  (2,  3,  4,  5)  acres  of  ground  per  day  with  a  14-inch  walking 

breaking  plow i 

76.  A  week-old  calf  should  be  fed  (2,  4,  6,  10)  quarts  of  milk  at  a  feed     .    .  2 

77.  Thumps  is  (part  of  a  wagon,  a  garden  implement,  a  symptom  of  disease 

in  pigs,  an  unsoundness  in  the  horse) 3 


36  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

78.  The  most  valuable  forage  for  dairy  cows  is  (clover,  timothy,  oat-hay, 

alfalfa) 4 

79.  A  threshing  outfit  will  thresh  (500,  1000,  2500,  4000)  bushels  of  wheat 

in  a  day 2 

80.  Weeds  most  seriously  reduce  the  yield  of  (corn,  oats,  wheat,  hay)  .    .    .  i 

8 1.  A  manure  spreader  covers  a  strip  of  ground  (3,  6,  10,  12)  feet  wide    .    .  2 

82.  An  ordinary  smoothing  harrow  is  (6,  10,  15,  18)  feet  wide 2 

83.  Hilled  corn  should  be  planted  (6  in.,  8  in.,  3  ft.,  6  ft.)  apart  in  the  rows     .  3 

86.  Plowing  the  soil  for  corn  should  be  done  to  a  depth  of  (2,  6,  10,  18)  inches  2 

87.  To  conserve  the  moisture  in  the  soil  a  (drill,  drag,  harrow,  cultivator) 

should  be  used  immediately  after  plowing 2 

88.  A  1 500- pound  horse  will  eat  (5,  10,  20,  50)  pounds  of  hay  a  day     ...  3 

89.  Corn  should  be  cultivated  to  a  depth  of  (i,  3,  7,  10)  inches      ......  2 

90.  A  mowing  machine  cuts  a  path  about  (i,  3,  5,  8  feet  wide) 3 

91.  A  common  width  of  furrow  is  (6,  8,  10,  14)  inches 4 

92.  Red  clover  ordinarily  yields  (i,  2,  3,  4)  crops  per  season „  2 

93.  The  best  laying  hens  will  lay  (100,  200,  300,  400)  eggs  per  year  ....  2 

94.  To  produce  good  crops,  wet  soil  should  be  (tiled,  subsoiled,  irrigated, 

dynamited) 2 

95.  A  horse  at  work  is  fed  (4,  6,  8,  10)  quarts  of  oats  at  a  feed i 

96.  Four-inch  drain  tile  are  usually  (8,  12,  18,  24)  inches  long    ......  2 

97.  It  requires  (3,  5,  7,  9)  acres  of  grass  to  furnish  pasturage  for  a  cow  during 

the  pasturage  season i 

98.  One  of  the  birds  that  hops  over  the  ground  is  (robin,  blackbird,  crow, 

quail) I 

99.  It  takes  about  (i,  4,  8,  12)  pounds  of  binder  twine  to  bind  an  acre  of  good 

wheat 2 

100.  The  tree  of  these  four  that  shows  its  leaf  earliest  in  the  spring  is  (oak,  ash, 

maple,  hickory) 3 

101.  A  veal  calf  should  be  marketed  at  the  age  of  (2,  4,  6,  10)  weeks      ...  3 

1 02.  The  first  fruit  tree  of  these  to  blossom  in  the  spring  is  (cherry,  apple, 

pear,  quince) i 

103.  Corn  is  planted  to  a  depth  of  (i,  3,  6,  8)  inches 2 

104.  A  fattening  steer  will  gain  (>£,  i,  3,  5)  pounds  a  day  in  weight   ....  3 

105.  Three  horses  are  hitched  together  by  means  of  an  (evener,  pole,  single- 

tree, doubletree) i 

1 06.  It  takes  (200,  500,  1000,  2000)  pounds  of  fertilizer  per  acre  of  wheat      .  i 

107.  It  requires  (4,  8,  14,  20)  bushels  of  potatoes  to  plant  an  acre 2 

1 08.  A  week  old  calf  is  fed  (once,  twice,  3-times,  4- times)  a  day 2 

109.  Apeach  tree  should  begin  to  bear  at  age  of  ( i,  3,  5,  7)  years 2 

no.    It  takes  (i,  2,  3,  4)  bushels  of  wheat  to  sow  an  acre  of  good  ground  .    .  2 

in.   Apple  trees  should  be  planted  (10,  20,  30,  50)  feet  apart 3 

112.  Cabbage  plants  should  be  planted  (4,  6,  10,  16)  inches  apart  in  the  rows  4 

113.  In  drilled  wheat  the  rows  are  about  (4,  7,  9,  12)  inches  apart 2 

114.  A  farm  horse  should  be  shod  in  intervals  of  (2-weeks,  6-weeks,  3-rnonths, 

6-months)    ... 3 

115.  To  destroy  lice,  hogs  may  be  dipped  in  a  solution  of  (molasses,  turpen- 

tine, lard,  carbolic-acid) 4 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  37 

The  questions  were  administered  to  ten  farmers  living  on  Ohio 
farms  and  regarded  as  "successful"  farmers;  to  twenty-one  women 
novices  living  in  the  city,  three  of  whom  were  born  on  farms;  to 
twenty-four  men  novices,  some  of  whom  were  college  graduates  and 
had  lived  for  a  long  period  of  time  on  the  farm,  from  five  to  eighteen 
years  in  their  boyhood ;  to  nine  advanced  students  in  a  state  college 
of  agriculture,  preparing  to  become  high-school  teachers  of  agricul- 
ture ;  and  to  thirteen  high-school  teachers  of  agriculture  in  the  same 
state  as  the  college  of  agriculture  students. 

Taking  the  one  hundred  and  thirteen  questions,  without  further 
selection,  and  setting  up  the  usual  critical  scoring  lines  (43)  between 
novices  and  "semi-skilled"  farmers;  between  "semi-skilled"  farmers 
and  "successful  farmers,"  all  women  novices,  save  one  with  previous 
experience  of  eighteen  years  on  a  farm,  are  rated  as  novices.  None 
of  the  men  novices  received  ratings  above  "semi-skilled."  Of  the  nine 
advanced  students  of  the  state  college  of  agriculture,  eight  are  rated 
by  the  test  as  "semi-skilled"  and  one  as  a  novice;  of  the  thirteen  high- 
school  teachers  of  agriculture,  ten  are  rated  as  "semi-skilled"  and 
three  as  "successful  farmers."  Of  the  "successful  farmers"  all  save 
one  boy,  included  in  the  group,  who  was  at  the  time  attending  high- 
school,  are  rated  as  "successful  farmers."  The  results  thus  show  a 
remarkably  good  differentiation  of  farming  ability  as  far  as  it  can  be 
judged  from  the  measure,  which  is  not,  of  course,  fully  adequate. 

The  technical  training  of  the  college  boys,  subjected  in  all  due  fair- 
ness, it  must  be  stated,  to  a  somewhat  different  type  of  farming  from 
that  prevailing  on  the  general  farms  of  Ohio,  was  not  sufficient  to 
enable  any  of  them  to  obtain  ratings  as  "successful  farmers."  That 
the  difference  is  not  due  wholly  to  the  difference  in  the  section  of  the 
country  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  high-school  teachers  of  agri- 
culture from  the  same  state,  and  somewhat  experienced  in  the  actual 
farming  operations  of  their  vicinities,  were  able  to  make  a  higher 
average  score,  and  one  quarter  of  them  to  receive  ratings  as  :<success- 
ful  farmers,"  judged  by  the  Ohio  standard.  We  may  infer  from  this 
that  the  questions  selected  were  "practical  questions"  in  the  sense 
that  one  must  have  had  actual  farm  experience  in  order  to  make  high 
scores  on  the  test. 

There  are  seventy  questions  of  the  set  which  no  single  one  of  the 
farmers  missed.  To  the  average  man  of  the  street  such  questions 
would  be  the  ideal  type  of  question.  The  reasoning  would  be  some- 


38  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

what  as  follows:  If  no  single  farmer  missed  any  one  of  the  seventy 
questions,  then  failure  to  pass  any  considerable  number  of  the  ques- 
tions would  undoubtedly  prove  a  serious  lack  of  farming  skill  or 
knowledge.  Philosophically,  such  owes  its  origin  to  the  type  of 
thinking  characteristic  of  the  trick  question  so  popular  with  many 
foremen.  Individual  scores  were  computed  on  the  seventy  easiest 
questions — easiest  for  Ohio  farmers — and  the  results  graphed  as 
usual.  With  the  critical  scoring  points  set  up,  farmers  were  separated 
from  men  novices,  although  there  was  little  leeway  in  scoring  points 
between  the  two  groups.  Inexperienced  men  novices  and  the  experi- 
enced novices  were  here  grouped  together  indiscriminately  in  scores. 
Thus,  the  set  is  not  a  bad  examination,  but  could  be  very  much  im- 
proved by  proper  selection  of  questions.  Undoubtedly  it  is  only  by 
having  a  very  large  number  of  questions  that  the  rather  good  differ- 
entiation has  been  obtained.  It  must  be  remembered  that  even 
"trick  questions"  will  differentiate  the  various  trade  classes  if  we  use 
enough  of  them.  The  difficulty  in  industry  with  the  "trick  question" 
is  that  the  foreman  is  prone  to  hire  or  not  hire  a  man  on  the  basis  of 
his  answers  to  one,  or  at  most,  two  or  three  of  these  "trick  ques- 
tions." 

After  the  seventy  easiest  questions  had  been  evaluated  as  above, 
the  forty- three  most  difficult  questions  were  similarly  evaluated. 
It  is  astonishing  to  discover  that  the  differentiation  of  groups 
secured  by  using  the  difficult  questions  is  much  inferior  to  that 
obtained  from  the  easier  ones.  Men  novices  in  general  make  scarcely 
any  better  scores  than  women  novices ;  there  is  some  overlapping  of 
men  novices  with  farmers;  while  four  of  the  women  novices  made 
higher  scores  than  the  lowest  farmer.  This  lack  of  differentiation  is 
probably  due  to  the  small  number  of  questions  involved  rather  than 
to  failure  of  difficult  questions  to  secure  the  differentiation  which 
difficult  questions  are  usually  expected  to  secure.  The  method  gave 
very  poor  differentiation  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  questions  were 
difficult.  Examining  our  measure  of  the  percentage  of  the  total 
group  who  failed,  it  is  a  question  whether  the  lack  of  differentiation 
with  difficult  questions  is  not  perhaps  due  to  the  fact  that  the  ques- 
tions, if  graphed,  would  present  unfavorable  graphs.  Without 
graphing,  but  merely  from  inspection  of  a  chart  on  which  the  number 
of  failures  by  known  classes  was  tabulated,  a  set  of  forty  questions  of 
good  graph  form  was  selected.  Counting  all  the  men  novices  as  one 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  39 

class  and  as  superior  to  women  novices  in  regard  to  their  effective- 
ness as  farmers,  since  but  few  of  the  men  were  totally  inexperienced, 
the  forty  questions  yield  an  excellent  differentiation  of  the  three 
classes,  and  a  perfect  separation  of  "persons  living  on  a  farm"  from 
"persons  not  living  on  a  farm."  The  results  of  this  experiment  con- 
firmed the  conclusions  obtained  in  the  bricklayers'  written  trade 
test,  namely  that  (i)  either  a  very  large  number  of  written  questions 
must  be  used,  or  else  (2)  a  careful  selection  on  the  basis  of  graphed 
questions  must  be  made,  and  (3)  when  in  doubt  as  to  the  choice  be- 
tween two  questions  seemingly  alike  in  other  respects,  it  is  prefer- 
able generally  to  select  the  more  difficult  question. 

A   COMPARISON   OF   THREE   FORMS   OF   WRITTEN   TEST 

In  order  to  determine  the  relative  merits  of  three  types  of  exam- 
ination method,  the  reactions  of  subjects  to  a  test  of  general  infor- 
mation were  studied.  There  are  two  statistical  aspects  of  the  worth 
of  any  test:  (i)  its  correlation  with  an  independent  criterion  of  the 
ability  tested,  and  (2)  its  reliability,  as  measured  by  the  correlation 
coefficient  of  reliability.  Only  the  second  of  these  two  aspects  has 
been  investigated  in  this  experiment. 

Fifty  items  of  information,  designed  to  sample  a  very  wide  range 
of  general  information  ability,  were  assembled  and  arranged  in  three 
forms  of  test:  (i)  recall  test,  or  army  oral  trade  test,  with  the  one- 
word-answer  form  of  question, (2)  recognition  test,  with  the  questions 
worded  exactly  the  same  as  in  the  recall,  but  with  five  answers  given 
to  each  question,  only  one  of  which  was  correct,  (3)  true-false  test, 
the  material  being  arranged  to  make  use  as  far  as  possible  of  no  new 
concepts.  The  tests  are  shown  on  the  following  pages. 

GENERAL  INFORMATION  TEST.    RECALL 

Each  question  below  can  be  answered  with  a  single  word  or  a  number. 
Write  the  answer  in  the  blank  space  following  each  question. 

Who  was  the  first  president  of  the  United  States? 

c        ,       Ans.   Washington. 
Samples  .    .. 

What  color  are  ripe  strawberries? 

Ans.   Red. 

1.  What  letter  designates  the  note  on  the  bottom  line  of  the  staff  in  music? 
Ans.   E. 

2.  What  is  the  smallest  fraction  of  a  cent  in  which  stocks  are  quoted? 
Ans.     i 


4O  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

3.  How  many  minutes  does  it  take  light  to  travel  from  the  sun  to  the  earth? 
Ans.   8. 

4.  By  what  sculptor  was  "The  Thinker"  made? 
Ans.    Rodin. 

5.  What  was  the  nationality  of  William  of  Orange? 
Ans.   Dutch. 

6.  Who,  in  American  history,  is  known  as  "Old  Hickory"? 
Ans.   Jackson.  , 

7.  How  many  feet  does  an  object  fall  from  a  position  of  rest  in  the  first  second? 
Ans.    1 6. 

8.  How  many  senators  represent  each  state  at  Washington? 
Ans.   2. 

9.  What  was  the  nationality  of  Rembrandt? 
Ans.   Dutch. 

10.  What  is  width  in  inches  of  a  hand  by  which  the  height  of  horses  is  measured? 
Ans.   4. 

11.  By  whom  was  Jeffries  defeated  in  the  prize  fight  at  Reno? 
Ans.   Johnson. 

12.  Who  founded  the  Mormon  religion? 
Ans.   Smith. 

13.  What  wood  was  found  best  for  aeroplane  construction? 
Ans.   Spruce. 

14.  Who  said  "I  came,  I  saw,  I  conquered?" 
Ans.   Caesar. 

15.  How  many  teams  are  there  in  the  National  Baseball  League? 
Ans.   8. 

1 6.  Who  is  the  father  of  modern  socialism? 
Ans.   Marx. 

17.  In  what  city  was  President  McKinley  assassinated? 
Ans.    Buffalo. 

1 8.  What  is  the  key  of  music  which  has  no  sharps  or  flats? 
Ans.    C. 

19.  What  American  admiral  first  visited  Japan? 
Ans.   Perry. 

20.  In  what  country  has  the  story  of  William  Tell  its  origin? 
Ans.   Switzerland. 

21.  What  is  the  largest  city  in  South  America? 
Ans.    Buenos-Aires. 

22.  How  many  feet  are  there  in  a  fathom? 
Ans.  6. 

23.  What  is  the  smallest  planet  in  the  solar  system? 
Ans.   Mercury. 

24.  What  acid  is  contained  in  vinegar? 
Ans.  Acetic. 

25.  For  what  American  poet  was  the  armchair  made  from  the  spreading  chest- 

nut tree? 
Ans.   Longfellow. 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  41 

26.  In  what  river  are  the  Thousand  Isles? 
Ans.   St.  Lawrence. 

27.  By  what  insect  is  the  yellow  fever  germ  carried? 
Ans.    Mosquito. 

28.  On  what  mountain  were  the  commandments  received  by  Moses? 
Ans.   Sinai. 

29.  What  stick  is  generally  used  in  golf  when  on  the  green? 
Ans.   Putter. 

30.  From  what  animal  is  ambergris  secured? 
Ans.   Whale. 

31.  How  many  legs  does  an  insect  usually  have? 
A  ns.   6. 

32.  Who  created  the  character  of  Ichabod  Crane? 
Ans.    Irving. 

33.  By  whom  was  the  "Angelus"  painted? 
Ans.    Millet. 

34.  What  breed  of  dairy  cow  gives  the  greatest  amount  of  milk? 
Ans.   Holstein. 

35.  What  chemical  element  is  the  basis  of  graphite? 
Ans.   Carbon. 

36.  What  is  the  name  of  the  human  bone  which  extends  from  the  knee  to  the  hip? 
A  ns.   Femur. 

37.  What  Biblical  character  said,  "Your  people  shall  be  my  people?" 
Ans.    Ruth. 

38.  Who  discovered  the  Mississippi  River? 
Ans.   De  Soto. 

39.  What  mythological  beauty  was  the  cause  of  the  Trojan  War? 
Ans.   Helen. 

40.  During  what  war  did  the  charge  of  the  light  brigade  take  place? 
Ans.   Crimean. 

41.  In  what  country  is  most  of  the  world's  sisal  crop  grown? 
Ans.    Mexico. 

42.  On  how  many  hills  was  Rome  built? 
Ans.   7. 

43.  What  wrestler  is  famous  for  the  "scissors  hold"? 
Ans.    Stecher. 

44.  In  what  play  does  the  character  of  Portia  appear? 
Ans.   The  Merchant  of  Venice. 

45.  What  instrument  is  used  to  test  the  strength  of  a  storage  battery  solution? 
Ans.   Hydrometer. 

46.  What  state  is  called  the  "mother  of  presidents"? 
Ans.   Virginia. 

47.  What  breed  of  hen  is  best  for  egg  production? 
Ans.   Leghorn. 

48.  To  what  country  does  Greenland  belong? 
Ans.   Denmark. 


42  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

49.  What  state  contains  a  section  known  as  the  "Panhandle"? 
Ans.  Texas. 

50.  In  what  city  is  the  Smithsonian  Institute? 
Ans.   Washington. 


GENERAL  INFORMATION  TEST.    RECOGNITION 
Read  each  question  carefully,  and  then  underscore  the  one  correct  answer. 

JHow  many  inches  are  there  in  a  foot? 
Ans.    (8,  10,  12,  14,  16). 

Who  was  thelrst  president  of  the  United  States? 
Ans.  (Lincoln,  Adams,  Franklin,  Grant,  Washington). 

1.  What  letter  designates  the  note  on  the  bottom  line  of  the  staff  in  music? 
Ans.    (A,  E,  G,  B,  C). 

2.  What  is  the  smallest  fraction  of  a  cent  in  which  stocks  are  quoted? 
Ans.   (1/2,  1/3,  1/8,  1/5,  i/io). 

3.  How  many  minutes  does  it  take  light  to  travel  from  the  sun  to  the  earth? 
Ans.   (4,  8,  12,  16,  20). 

4.  By  what  sculptor  was  "The  Thinker"  made? 

Ans.    (Michael- Angelo,  Bartholdi,  Borglum,  St.-Gaudens,  Rodin). 

5.  What  was  the  nationality  of  William  of  Orange? 
Ans.    (Dutch,  Scotch,  French,  English,  Irish). 

6.  Who,  in  American  History,  is  known  as  "Old  Hickory"? 
Ans.    (Johnson,  Jackson,  Lee,  Lincoln,  Boone). 

7.  How  many  feet  does  an  object  fall  from  a  position  of  rest  in  the  first  second? 
Ans.    (8,  12,  16,  20,  24). 

8.  How  many  senators  represent  each  state  at  Washington? 
Ans.    (i,  2,  3,  4,  5). 

9.  What  was  the  nationality  of  Rembrandt? 

Ans.   (German,  Swiss,  Belgian,  Dutch,  Austrian). 

10.  What  is  width  in  inches  of  a  hand  by  which  the  height  of  horses  is  measured? 
Ans.    (£,  6,  8,  10,  12). 

11.  By  whom  was  Jeffries  defeated  in  the  prize  fight  at  Reno? 
Ans.    (Willard,  Corbett,  Fitzsimmons,  Dempsey,  Johnson). 

12.  Who  founded  the  Mormon  religion? 

Ans.    (Dowie,  Young,  Smoot,  Smith,  Penn). 

13.  What  wood  was  found  best  for  aeroplane  construction? 
Ans.    (Hickory,  pine,  ash,  spruce,  hemlock). 

14.  Who  said,  "I  came,  I  saw,  I  conquered"? 

Ans.    (Napoleon,  Caesar,  Washington,  Cromwell,  Grant). 

15.  How  many  teams  are  there  in  the  National  Baseball  League? 
Ans.    (4,  6,_8,  10,  12). 

1 6.  Who  is  the  father  of  modern  socialism? 

Ans.    (Trotsky,  Debs,  Penrose,  Tolstoy,  Marx). 

17.  In  what  city  was  President  McKinley  assassinated? 

Ans.    (Buffalo,  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  Rochester,  Milwaukee). 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  43 

1 8.  What  is  the  key  of  music  which  has  no  sharps  or  flats? 
Ans.    (A,  C,  D,  E,  G). 

19.  What  American  admiral  first  visited  Japan? 
Ans.    (Farragut,  Jones,  Evans,  Perry,  Deucy). 

20.  In  what  country  has  the  story  of  William  Tell  its  origin? 
Ans.    (England,  Switzerland,  Spain,  France,  Italy). 

21.  What  is  the  largest  city  in  South  America? 

Ans.    (Rio-de-Janerio,  Lima,  Santiago,  Valpariso,  Buenos-Aires). 

22.  How  many  feet  are  there  in  a  fathom? 
Ans.    (4,  6,  8,  10,  12). 

23.  What  is  the  smallest  planet  in  the  solar  system? 
Ans.    (Venus,  Saturn,  Mercury,  Neptune,  Mars). 

24.  What  acid  is  contained  in  vinegar? 

Ans.    (Acetic,  citric,  nitric,  oxalic,  carbolic). 

25.  For  what  American  poet  was  the  armchair  made  from  the  spreading  chestnut 

tree? 
Ans.    (Whittier,  Lowell,  Tennyson,  Longfellow,  Bryant). 

26.  In  what  river  are  the  Thousand  Isles? 

Ans.    (Hudson,  St.  Lawrence,  Delaware,  Mississippi,  Amazon). 

27.  By  what  insect  is  the  yellow  fever  germ  carried? 
Ans.    (House-fly,  cootie,  flea,  mosquito,  tick). 

28.  On  what  mountain  were  the  commandments  received  by  Moses? 
Ans.    (Ararat,  Everest,  Aetna,  Mount-of-Olives,  Sinai). 

29.  What  stick  is  generally  used  in  golf  when  on  the  green? 
Ans.    (Mashie,  lofter,  putter,  brassie,  cleak). 

30.  From  what  animal  is  ambergris  secured? 
Ans.    (Elephant,  whale,  walrus,  camel,  shark). 

31.  How  many  legs  does  an  insect  usually  have? 
Ans.    (4,  6,  8,  10,  12). 

32.  Who  created  the  character  of  Ichabod  Crane? 
Ans.    (Cooper,  Dickens,  Dumas,  Irving,  Stevenson). 

33.  By  whom  was  the  "Angelus"  painted? 

Ans.    (Corot,  Bonheur,  Millet,  DaVinci,  Velasquez). 

34.  What  breed  of  dairy  cow  gives  the  greatest  amount  of  milk? 
Ans.    (Jersey,  Guernsey,  Ayreshire,  Brown-Swiss,  Holstein). 

35.  What  chemical  element  is  the  basis  of  graphite? 
Ans.    (Carbon,  lead,  mercury,  zinc,  iron). 

36.  What  is  the  name  of  the  human  bone  which  extends  from  the  knee  to  the  hip? 
Ans.    (Ulna,  femur,  humerus,  cervical,  clavicle). 

37.  What  Biblical  character  said,  "Your  people  shall  be  my  people"? 
Ans.    (Esther,  Rachael,  Rebecca,  Ruth,  Hester). 

38.  Who  discovered  the  Mississippi  river? 

Ans.    (DeSoto,  Balboa,  Drake,  Ponce-de-Leon,  Cortez). 

39.  What  mythological  beauty  was  the  cause  of  the  Trojan  War? 
Ans.    (Venus,  Minerva,  Helen,  Ceres,  Juno). 


44  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

40.  During  what  war  did  the  charge  of  the  light  brigade  take  place? 

Ans.    (Napoleonic,  War-of-the- Roses,  Franco- Prussian,  United  States  Civil, 
Crimean). 

41.  In  what  country  is  most  of  the  world's  sisal  crop  grown? 
Ans.    (India,  Brazil,  Mexico,  China,  Turkey). 

42.  On  how  many  hills  was  Rome  built? 
Ans.   (3,  5,  2,9,  11). 

43.  What  wrestler  is  famous  for  the  "scissors  hold"? 
Ans.    (Lewis,  Stecher,  Caddock,  Roller,  Demetral). 

44.  In  what  play  does  the  character  of  Portia  appear? 

Ans.    (King  Lear,  Twelfth  Night,  Julius  Caesar,  The  Merchant  of  Venice, 
Henry  the  Eighth). 

45.  What  instrument  is  used  to  test  the  strength  of  a  storage  battery  solution? 
Ans.   (Hydrometer,  thermometer,  barometer,  altometer,  speedometer). 

46.  What  state  is  called  the  "mother  of  presidents"? 

Ans.    (Massachusetts,  Maryland,  Ohio,  New  York,  Virginia). 

47.  What  breed  of  hen  is  best  for  egg  production? 

Ans.    (Rhode-island-red,  cochin,  wyandotte,  leghorn,  barred-rock). 

48.  To  what  country  does  Greenland  belong? 

Ans.   Norway,  Sweden,  Denmark,  England,  France). 

49.  What  state  contains  a  section  known  as  the  "Panhandle"? 
Ans.    (Arizona,  Texas,  Louisiana,  Kentucky,  California). 

50.  In  what  city  is  the  Smithsonian  Institute? 

Ans,    (Boston,  Philadelphia,  Pittsburgh,  Baltimore,  Washington). 

GENERAL  INFORMATION  TEST.   TRUE— FALSE 

Examine  each  statement  carefully.  If  the  statement  is  true,  underline  the  word, 
"TRUE";  but  if  the  statement  is  false,  underline  instead  the  word,  "FALSE." 

.     /  There  are  sixteen  inches  in  a  foot TRUE     FALSE 

'S  \  Ripe  strawberries  are  red TRUE     FALSE 

1.  The  letter  G  is  the  note  which  is  on  the  bottom  line  of  the 

staff  in  music      TRUE 

2.  The  smallest  fraction  of  a  cent  in  which  stocks  are  quoted 

is  i  lio TRUE 

3.  It  takes  light  eight  minutes  to  travel  from  the  sun  to  the 

earth TRUE  FLASE 

4.  The  statute  of  "The  Thinker"  was  made  by  Bartholdi   .    .  TRUE  FALSE 

5.  The  nationality  of  William,  of  Orange  is  Dutch TRUE  FALSE 

6.  President  Jackson  is  known  as  "Old  Hickory." TRUE  FALSE 

7.  An  object  falls  twenty  feet  from  a  position  of  rest  in  the 

.        first  second TRUE  FALSE 

8.  Two  senators  represent  each  state  at  Washington  ....  TRUE  FALSE 

9.  Rembrandt  was  of  Dutch  nationality       TRUE  FALSE 

10.  A  hand,  by  means  of  which  the  height  of  horses  is  mea- 
sured, is  six  inches  in  width TRUE  FALSE 


Adaptation  to  School  Work 


45 


11.  Johnson  defeated  Jeffries  in  the  prize  fight  at  Reno   .    .    .    TRUE    FALSE 

12.  Dowie  founded  the  Mormon  religion TRUE     FALSE 

13.  Ash  was  found  to  be  the  best  wood  for  aeroplane  con- 

struction       TRUE    FALSE 

14.  It  was  Caesar  who  said,  "I  came,  I  saw,  I  conquered."     .    .    TRUE     FALSE 

15.  There  are  ten  teams  in  the  National  Baseball  League    .    .    TRUE    FALSE 

1 6.  Marx  is  the  father  of  modern  socialism TRUE    FALSE 

President  McKinley  was  assassinated  in  Rochester    .    .    .    TRUE     FALSE 
The  key  of  music  which  has  no  sharps  or  flats  is  C    ...    TRUE    FALSE 

Perry  was  the  first  admiral  to  visit  Japan TRUE     FALSE 

The  story  of  William  Tell  has  its  origin  in  Italy     ....    TRUE     FALSE 
The  largest  city  in  South  America  is  Rio  de  Janeiro  .    .    .    TRUE     FALSE 

There  are  six  feet  in  a  fathom TRUE     FALSE 

The  smallest  of  the  planets  in  the  solar  system  is  Venus  .    TRUE     FALSE 

Acetic  is  the  acid  which  is  contained  in  vinegar TRUE     FALSE 

The  armchair  made  from  the  spreading  chestnut  tree  was 

made  for  Longfellow 

The  Thousand  Isles  are  located  in  the  St.  Lawrence  River 

The  tick  is  the  carrier  of  the  yellow  fever  germ 

Moses  received  the  commandments  on  the  Mount  of  Olives 

The  putter  is  used  in  golf  when  on  the  green       

Ambergris  is  secured  from  the  shark 

An  insect  usually  has  six  legs      

Irving  created  the  character  of  Ichabod  Crane 

The  "Angelus"  was  painted  by  Bonheur 

Guernsey  cows  give  the  greatest  amount  of  milk    .... 

Carbon  is  the  chemical  basis  of  graphite 

The  human  bone  which  extends  from  the  knee  to  the  hip  is 

called  the  femur TRUE     FALSE 

Ruth  is  the  Biblical  character  who  said,  "Your  people  shall 

be  my  people." TRUE    FALSE 

Balboa  discovered  the  Mississippi  River TRUE     FALSE 

Helen  was  the  cause  of  the  Trojan  War TRUE     FALSE 

The  charge  of  the  light  brigade  took  place  during  the 

Franco-Prussian  War        TRUE    FALSE 

Most  of  the  world's  sisal  crop  is  grown  in  India      ....    TRUE     FALSE 

Rome  was  built  on  seven  hills TRUE     FALSE 

The  wrestler,  Demetral,  is  famous  for  the  "scissors  hold.  ".  TRUE  FALSE 
Portia  appears  in  the  play,  The  Merchant  of  Venice  .  .  TRUE  FALSE 
A  barometer  is  used  to  test  the  strength  of  a  storage  battery 

solution TRUE     FALSE 

Ohio  is  called  the  "mother  of  presidents." TRUE     FALSE 

Leghorn  hens  are  the  best  breed  for  egg  production  .    .    .    TRUE     FALSE 

Greenland  belongs  to  Iceland TRUE     FALSE 

Texas  contains  a  section  known  as  the  "Panhandle"  .  .  .  TRUE  FALSE 
The  Smithsonian  Institute  is  located  in  Washington  .  .  .  TRUE  FALSE 


TRUE 

FALSE 
FALSE 
FALSE 

TRUE 
TRUE 
TRUE 
TRUE 
TRUE 
TRUE 
TRUE 

FALSE 
FALSE 
FALSE 

FALSE 
FALSE 
FALSE 
FALSE 
FALSE 

TRUE 
TRUE 
TRUE 

46  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

The  tests  were  given  in  all  three  forms  to  any  one  person  at  one 
sitting  by  the  group  examination  method.  Since  results  might  con- 
ceivably be  influenced  by  the  order  in  which  the  forms  were  taken, 
all  of  the  six  possible  combinations  of  orders  were  administered  to 
different  subjects  of  the  same  school  classes  by  clipping  together  the 
test  papers  in  the  desired  order  of  administration,  hereinafter  called 
"method."  The  order  of  the  methods  is  as  follows: 

No.  of 
Cases 

Method  i.    Recall,  recognition,  true-false 39 

Method  2.    Recall,  true-false,  recognition 37 

Method  3.    Recognition,  recall,  true-false 14 

Method  4.    Recognition,  true-  false,  recall 12 

Method  5.   True-false,  recall,  recognition 10 

Method  6.   True-false,  recognition,  recall 12 

Total 124 

The  number  of  cases  by  methods  is  the  same  throughout,  save  in 
the  calculation  of  average  times  taken  on  the  tests  where  the  fre- 
quencies are  smaller  because  some  subjects  failed  to  record  the  time 
taken.  The  approximate  times,  taken  to  the  last  minute  already 
recorded  when  a  subject  finished  each  test,  were  found  by  the  simple 
expedient  of  the  examiner  marking  on  the  blackboard  the  time 
elapsed  at  the  end  of  every  minute,  the  time  of  completion  of  each 
form  being  written  on  the  test  paper  by  the  subjects.  This  procedure 
was  not  followed  in  two  classes  tested.  The  test  was  given  by  the 
work-limit  method,  accuracy  and  not  speed  being  stressed  in  the 
directions.  The  subjects  were  summer  school  students  at  Teachers 
College.  Since  reliability  is  being  investigated,  sex  differences  or 
class  differences  need  not  be  considered.  The  results  are  shown  in 
Table  I. 

On  all  methods,  the  subjects  made  the  lowest  average  score  on  the 
recall  form  of  test,  a  higher  average  score  on  the  recognition  form, 
and  a  still  higher  average  score  on  the  true-false  form.  The  true- 
false  form  is  decidedly  too  easy  a  test  for  university  students,  there 
being  from  76  to  8 1  per  cent  of  passes,  according  to  the  method. 

As  shown  by  the  average  scores,  the  recall  method  profits  by  hav- 
ing one  of  the  other  forms  given  first.  In  methods  I  and  2,  with  recall 
given  first,  the  average  recall  scores  are  87  and  84  per  cent  of  the 
average  recognition  scores;  in  methods  3  and  4,  with  recognition 


Adaptation  to  School  Work 


47 


TABLE  I 

AVERAGE  SCORES,  AVERAGE  INTERCORRELATIONS  OF  EACH  TEST  RESPECTIVELY 
WITH  THE  OTHER  Two,  RELIABILITY  COEFFICIENTS  OF  HALVES 
OF  TEST,  AVERAGE  TIMES  IN  MINUTES,  BY  METHODS 
AND  BY  TESTS 


A  verage  Correlation 

Reliability  Co- 

Average Score 

of  tests  with  other 

efficient  of  the 

Average  time  in 

on  test 

two  tests  in 

halves  of 

minutes 

each  case 

tests 

. 

$ 

• 
_o 

3 

1 

3 

1 

3 

Q    -§ 

Method 
Number 

No. 
of 
Cases 

I 

Recognit 

1 

1 

Recognit 

True-Fa 

1 

} 

True-Fa 

1 

1 

1 

?! 

i 

39 

29.1 

33-3 

39-2 

.872 

.670 

.811 

.724 

.487 

.405 

7-8 

5.4 

3-4 

28 

2 

37 

30.3 

35-9 

39-1 

.818 

.722 

.868 

.784 

.668 

.690 

8.0 

4-7 

3-6 

24 

3 

14 

31-4 

32.4 

37.4 

•938 

.827 

.852 

.784 

.785 

.664 

5-5 

8.2 

3-0 

12 

4 

12 

35.6 

36.9 

39.6 

.926 

.898 

•924 

.789 

•530 

.596 

5-4 

5-6 

3-7 

7 

5 

10 

36.2 

39-1 

40.3 

•358 

.803 

•432 

.284 

.271 

.385 

5-2 

4-9 

4.2 

9 

6 

12 

35-5 

36.8 

38.2 

.968 

.740 

.762 

.695 

.675 

.604 

6.2 

6.2 

4-3 

6 

Total 

124 

Average  of  six 

Total  of 

Total      86 

Average 

124  cases 

Average  Weighted 

Inter  correlations 

Time 

•813    .777     -775 

.448    .385    .340 

6.9      5.6        3.6 

given  first,  the  average  recall  scores  are  respectively  97  and  96  per 
cent  of  the  average  recognition  scores,  and  the  average  recall  scores 
are  larger  than  in  the  previous  two  methods;  in  methods  5  and  6, 
with  true-false  given  first,  the  average  recall  scores  are  respectively 
93  and  96  per  cent  of  the  average  recognition  scores,  while  the 
average  recall  scores  are  higher  than  in  all  but  one  of  the  four  pre- 
viously mentioned  methods.  The  true-false  test  is  subject  to  little  or 
no  improvability  through  previous  tests,  and  the  recognition  a  lesser 
amount  than  the  recall  form  of  test. 

In  the  absence  of  a  better  criterion,  we  may  say  that  that  test  is 
the  best  measure  of  general  information,  which,  on  the  average,  cor- 
relates highest  with  the  other  two  tests.  With  this  criterion,  recall 
ranks  first,  recognition  second,  and  true-false  last. 


48  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

The  recall  form,  with  fifty  questions  used  in  all  three  forms,  will 
yield  the  highest  reliability  coefficients  of  all  three  forms. 

For  further  computations,  all  persons  taking  recall  are  grouped 
together,  indiscriminately,  irrespective  of  method;  and  likewise  for 
the  recognition  and  recall.  From  these  total  distributions  the  total 
reliability  coefficients  and  total  average  times  of  the  table  are  com- 
puted. 

Now,  although  for  fifty  questions,  i.e.,  the  same  number  of  ques- 
tions, done  by  subjects  on  recall,  recognition  and  true-false  forms 
respectively  in  an  average  number  of  minutes  of  6.9,  5.6,  and  3.6, 
the  recall  method  is  the  most  reliable,  it  does  not  necessarily  follow 
that  the  method  is  the  most  reliable  for  the  same  average  amount  of 
time  spent  in  examination. 

The  average  times  show  that,  in  the  same  time  required  to  give 
one  recall  question,  1.23  recognition  questions  may  be  given  and  1.92 
true-false  questions.  The  question  then  is,  "Will  the  added  nu  nber 
of  questions  which  may  be  given  in  the  same  time  be  sufficient  to  in- 
crease the  reliability  of  either  recognition  or  true-false  to  a  point 
exceeding  the  reliability  of  the  recall?"  To  answer  this  question 
theoretically,  we  make  use  of  the  usual  formula  for  reliability  coeffi- 
cients of  n  forms  of  a  test  with  n  forms, 

_  n  rn 

(0  "  i  +  (n  -  i)rn 

in  which,  rnn  is  the  reliability  to  be  calculated,  rn  is  the  reliability 
of  the  halves  of  the  test,  and  n  is  the  number  of  multiples  of  the 
halves  considered.  Table  II  gives  the  r\\  values,  correlations  of  one 
25-question  form  with  another  25-question  form. 

When  n  =  2,  we  get  the  reliability  of  a  5O-question  form  of  the 
test  with  another  5O-question  set;  i.e.,  Form  A  with  Form  B  of  the 
same  test.  The  formula  then  becomes 

(2)  2fn 

"  (recall)       I  +  fll 

Solving  formula  (2)  directly  for  recall,  and  formulae  (3)  and  (4) 
below,  respectively  for  recognition  and  true-false;  i.e.,  taking  n  of 
such  value  that  equal  times  will  be  spent  in  examination,  such  time 
as  is  required  to  give  50  recall  questions,  or  6.9  minutes,  we  obtain 
the  last  horizontal  row  of  Table  II. 

2(1.23).  m 


(3) 


(recognition)        l  +  [2(1.23)  -i]-fu 


Adaptation  to  School  Work 
TABLE  II 


49 


COMPARISON  OF   RELIABILITY   COEFFICIENTS   OF  THE   RECALL,    RECOGNITION 
AND  TRUE-FALSE  TESTS  (ALL  METHODS  GROUPED  TOGETHER) 


Recall 

Recognition 

True-false 

Reliability     (Vn  )    of   halves. 

124  cases.    Two  forms  of 

25  each. 

.448 

.385 

•340 

Reliability  of  two  5O-question 

sets.     Formula  (2) 

.618 

•556 

.507 

Average  time  in  minutes  to 

do  50  questions 

6.9 

5-6 

3-6 

Number  of  questions  per  unit 

of  recall  time 

1.  00 

1.23 

1.92 

Number  of  sets  of  25  ques- 

tions to  get  equal  reliability 

of  .618 

2.OOO 

2.602 

3.140 

Reliability  of  Form  A  with 

Form  B  when  6.9  minutes 

examination  time  is  used 

.618 

.607 

.664 

(4) 


2   (l.92)-fu 


(true-false) 


i  +  [2(1.92)  —  i]-fu 


This  table  yields  the  interesting  result  that,  with  all  methods 
grouped  together,  with  equal  examination  time,  the  true-false  test 
is  the  most  reliable,  the  recall  less  reliable,  and  recognition  least 
reliable. 

In  order  to  obtain  an  idea  of  the  dependence  of  reliability  upon 
the  amount  of  time  taken  in  an  examination,  we  may  plot  the  three 
equations  involving  reliability  coefficients  and  examination  time. 
This  has  been  done  in  Fig.  28,  where  the  ordinates  are  rnn,  and 
abscissae  n,  or  rather,  n  reduced  to  time  in  units  of  the  recall  time, 
which  is  used  as  a  standard  of  comparison  for  the  other  two,  using 
the  scale,  I  n'  =  y£  (6.9)  =  3.45  minutes,  in  which  n'  is  the  average 
time  in  minutes  required  to  do  I  multiple  of  25  recall  information 
questions.  The  numbers  of  questions,  Q,  done  in  t  minutes,  are  given 
respectively  by  the  formulae  : 

(5)  Recall,  Q  =    7.25  /. 

(6)  Recognition,  Q  =     8.83  /. 

(7)  True-false,  Q  =  13.89  t. 


5o  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

These  equations  may  be  conveniently  plotted  as  straight-line  equa- 
tions on  the  same  graph,  using  coordinates  on  the  right-hand  margin 
of  the  graph.  From  the  graph  one  can  thus  determine  both  the  num- 
ber of  questions  and  the  examination  time  required  to  yield  any  pre- 
determined reliability  coefficient.  This  graph  holds  good  only  for 
the  range  of  ability  represented  by  the  test  group  of  subjects  and  for 
the  conditions  of  the  experiment  above  outlined. 


18 


iO      IH       14      16       48      30 


FIG.  28.   THEORETICAL    RELATIONSHIP    OF    RELIABILITY    COEFFICIENTS   TO 
EXAMINATION  TIME. 


There  is  some  question  whether  grouping  all  persons  regardless 
of  method  or  order  of  giving  the  test  may  not  obscure  some  of  the 
differences  which  exist  in  the  reliabilities.  The  average  times,  for 
instance,  show  that  if  a  group  of  persons  given  the  true-false  or  the 
recall  or  recognition  first,  followed  by  either  of  the  other  two,  the 
group  tested  tends  to  take  more  time  on  the  test  taken  first  than  any 
other  group  of  persons  given  any  other  test  first.  Accordingly,  the 
reliabilities  have  been  computed,  grouping  together  all  the  76  people 
who  took  recall  first,  the  26  who  took  recognition  first,  and  the  22 
who  took  true-false  first.  Evidently  the  results  on  these  tests  are 
not  influenced  by  previous  consideration  of  any  other  form  of  test, 
and  so  correspond  as  closely  as  may  be  to  an  actual  recall  or  other 


Adaptation  to  School  Work 


test  as  given  alone  and  without  any  other.    The  following  table 
results : 


Recall 

Recognition 

True-falst 

rn  ' 

25  questions 

•743 

.689 

•56i 

^22 

50  questions 
Form  A  with 

•853 

.816 

.719 

Form  B 

Average  time  in  minutes 
\  Equal  examination  time 
nn\  of  7.80  minutes 

7.80 
•853 

7.24 
.826 

4.24 
.824 

The  reliabilities  here  are  much  higher.  The  added  "conscientious- 
ness" when  persons  take  the  true-false  first  seems  to  make  their  aver- 
age time,  which  is  not  increased  proportionately,  such  that  the  true- 
false  is  only  about  on  a  par  with  the  recognition  form  when  equal 
amounts  of  examination  time  are  taken.  The  conclusions  to  be 
drawn  from  this  experiment  are:  (i)  When  equal  numbers  of  in- 
formation questions  are  given  on  the  three  forms  of  information 
test,  the  recall  is  always  the  most  reliable,  followed  in  order  by 
recognition  and  true-false  forms,  but  that  (2)  where  equal  amounts 
of  examination  time  are  taken  on  the  three  forms  of  test,  the  relia- 
bilities do  not  differ  greatly. 

RELIABILITY   OF   VARIOUS   TRADE   TESTS 

The  above  technique  allows  us  to  compare  the  reliability  coeffi- 
cients of  various  trade  tests  based  on  different  numbers  of  ques- 
tions. Reliability  coefficients  of  the  same  magnitude  are  equal  only 
when  the  range  of  ability  is  the  same  in  the  two  cases  being  com- 
pared. Accordingly  in  Table  III  there  is  given  a  brief  qualitative 
description  of  the  group  tested  and  their  range  of  ability,  as  well  as 
a  brief  qualitative  description  of  the  various  tests,  the  number  of 
questions  in  the  test,  the  reliability  of  the  halves  of  the  test  com- 
puted between  the  odd  and  even  numbered  question  scores  of  the 

test,  the  reliability  of  Form  A  with  Form  B  of  the  same  test, 


- 

i  4-  r 


and  the  reliability  of  Form  A  with  Form  B  if  fifty  questions  had  been 
used  in  each  test.  The  last  column  is  thus  the  comparative  measure 


52  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

of  the  different  tests,  since  it  reduces  all  tests  to  the  same  number  of 
questions.  It  is  impossible  with  the  data  at  hand  to  compute  the 
reliabilities  with  equal  amounts  of  examination  time  taken.  The 
author  wishes  to  emphasize  the  point  that  all  correlation  coefficients, 
of  which  reliability  coefficients  are  but  one  variety,  must  be  inter- 
preted in  terms  of  the  range  of  ability;  concretely,  that  since  the 
range  is  limited  to  eighth  grade  students  only,  .795,  the  reliability  of 
the  girls'  trade  school  extension  students  on  the  one-word-answer 
written  switchboard  test,  is  as  high  a  reliability  as  would  be  repre- 
sented by  a  much  larger  figure  if  several  grades  were  to  be  included 
and  the  tests  given  to  a  larger  range.  Again,  the  best  measure  of  an 
examination  method  is  not  the  length  of  time  spent  in  examination, 
but  rather  a  composite  of  time  spent  in  administration  plus  the  time 
required  for  scoring.  The  time  per  person  required  for  adminis- 
tration is  often  negligible  as  compared  with  the  time  required  for 
scoring  a  test. 

From  Table  III  it  will  be  noticed  that  the  reliability  of  all  trade 
tests,  measures  of  acquired  learning,  is  uniformly  high  save  in  the 
switchboard  operators'  test  above  mentioned,  which  is  probably 
affected  by  the  fact  that  only  twenty  questions  were  used  in  the 
examination,  and  in  the  test  of  progress  in  the  university  class  in 
mental  measurements  likewise.  The  general  information  tests,  or- 
dinarily rated  as  tests  of  intelligence,  are  in  a  distinctly  lower  class 
as  regards  reliability. 

This  table  presents  the  reliability  coefficients  of  all  the  trade  tests 
which  the  author  has  been  able  to  collect  up  to  the  present  time. 
Trade  test  methods  give  high  reliability  coefficients,  provided 
enough  questions,  and  sufficiently  difficult  or  rather  well  scaled 
questions,  are  used.  Forty  selected  difficult  questions  on  the  farm- 
ers' recognition  test  gave  a  higher  reliability  coefficient  than  one 
hundred  and  ten  unrevised  questions.  Selected,  or  revised  ques- 
tions on  the  soldiers'  mechanical  test  gave  a  higher  reliability  than 
the  unrevised  questions.  The  one-word-answer  form  of  test  gen- 
erally gives  higher  reliabilities  than  the  recognition  or  true-false 
forms. 

SCHOOL  EXAMINATIONS 

Because  of  its  high  reliability  and  ease  of  administration  and 
because  it  embodies  all  the  superiority  of  the  recall  form  of  exam- 
ination over  the  recognition  form,  the  one-word-answer  method  is 


Adaptation  to  School  Work 


53 


TABLE  III 
RELIABILITY  COEFFICIENTS  OF  VARIOUS  TRADE  TESTS 


I 

I 

I 

fc 
d 
* 

Range  of  Ability 

£ 
•& 

3 

Q 

No.  of  Questions  in  I 

II 

i 

w  ^"' 

-    *• 
fi  + 

°1 
*!"» 

Ill 

ell 

Eyelet 

20 

Three     weeks 

One  -  word  -  answer. 

50 

.850 

.919 

.919 

Machine 

to  one  year 

Eyelet     machine. 

Tenders 

of  experience 

Oral  trade  test. 

Bricklayers 

14 

Apprentice  to 

Army  oral.  One-word- 

38 

.929 

.964 

.985 

Standardiza- 

expert inclu- 

answer.  Army   oral 

tion  Group 

sive  4  A,  5  J, 

bricklayers  test. 

SE. 

Girls'  Trade 

14 

All  eighth 

One  -  word  -  answer 

20 

.436 

.607 

•795 

School  Exten- 

grade pupils. 

written.       Switch- 

sion Students 

board  oral  test. 

Farmers  and 

30 

8    women 

Multiple    choice     (4 

"Easy" 

.926 

.962 

•947 

University 

novices.     12 

choices)     written 

70 

Students 

men  novices. 

questions.  Farmers' 

10  farmers. 

test. 

30 

"Hard" 

.899 

•947 

•958 

40 

30 

Al  no 

•957 

•979 

•953 

Men  and 

124 

"Above      col- 

General    information 

Women 

lege  entrance 

test.      All   methods 

Summer 

require- 

combined. 

School 

ments." 

Recall.  One  •  word  - 

50 

.448 

.618 

.618 

College 

answer. 

Students 

Recognition  of  cor- 

50 

•385 

•556 

.556 

rect  answer.     5    al- 

ternatives. 

True-false  . 

50 

.340 

•507 

•507 

Men  and 

6l 

Graduate  stu- 

School test  in  mental 

20 

•25 

.40 

.625 

Women 

dents  in  col- 

measurements.  True- 

College 

lege. 

false. 

Students 

61 

Same   in   one-word- 

20 

.50 

.667 

.833 

answer  form. 

Soldiers 

271 

Vocational 

Use  of  tools  unrevised 

46 

.796 

.886 

.894 

courses  E.  & 

picture     mechanical 

R.  School. 

test. 

223 

Revised  picture  me- 

45 

.849 

.920 

.928 

chanical     interest 

test. 

54  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

desirable  in  school  examinations.  The  one-word-answer  method  can 
easily  be  adapted  to  school  examinations,  especially  in  those  subjects 
which  have  a  high  information  content:  all  types  of  science,  physics, 
chemistry,  botany,  zoology, vocational  courses,  and  technical  subjects 
such  as  mathematics,  statistics,  mechanical  drawing,  logic.  Any  study 
which  possesses  a  large  number  of  terms  peculiar  to  such  studies, 
paralleled  by  "trade  terms"  in  the  trade,  lends  itself  admirably  to 
this  method. 

A  physics  examination,  designed  to  illustrate  the  ease  with  which 
such  questions  may  be  written  in  a  science  subject,  is  herewith 
reproduced. 

GENERAL  PHYSICS  EXAMINATION 

To  illustrate  the  trade  test  form  of  question 

1.  What  do  you  call  a  minute  particle  of  matter  which  is  made  up  of  atoms? 
Ans.   Molecule. 

2.  What  Physical  property  of  iron  allows  it  to  be  drawn  into  a  wire? 
Ans.   Ductility. 

3.  What  do  you  call  the  product  of  the  mass  of  a  body  multiplied  by  its  accel- 

eration? 
Ans.   Force. 

4.  What  physical  property  of  a  body  tends  to  keep  it  in  motion  whence  once  set 

in  motion? 
Ans.   Inertia  (momentum). 

5.  What  do  you  call  one-half  the  product  of  the  mass  of  a  body  multiplied  by  the 

square  of  its  velocity? 
Ans.   Kinetic-energy. 

6.  What  is  the  C-G-S  unit  of  force? 
Ans.   Dyne. 

7.  What  is  the  diffusion  of  a  fluid  through  a  membrane  called? 
A  ns.   Osmosis. 

8.  Who  discovered  the  law  of  falling  bodies? 
Ans.   Newton. 

y.   How  many  feet  per  second  of  acceleration  is  given  to  a  falling  body  by  gravity? 
Ans.   From  32.00  to  32.16. 

10.  What  do  you  call  a  glass  tube  bent  so  as  to  drain  water  over  a  point  higher 

than  the  surface  of  the  water? 
Ans.   Syphon. 

11.  How  much  is  the  weight  of  one  cubic  centimeter  of  water  at  its  greatest 

density? 
Ans.    i -gram. 

12.  If  the  volume  of  a  given  weight  of  gas  at  constant  temperature  is  doubled, 

how  many  per  cent  is  the  pressure  decreased? 
Ans.   50. 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  55 

13.  What  property  of  a  tone  is  determined  by  the  vibration  rate? 
Ans.    Pitch. 

14.  What  do  you  call  it  when  rays  of  light  are  bent  by  going  through  a  prism? 
Ans.    Refraction. 

15.  What  shape  of  mirror  reflects  parallel  rays  of  light  to  a  focus? 
Ans.    Concave. 

1 6.  What  are  the  first  three  colors  of  the  primary  spectrum,  in  order,  at  the  long 

wave  length  end? 
Ans.    Red-orange-yellow. 

17.  At  what  Centigrade  temperature  does  water  freeze? 
Ans.   Zero  (o). 

1 8.  What  do  you  call  the  variation  of  a  magnetic  needle  from  a  true  north  and 

south  line? 
Ans.    Declination. 

19.  What  kind  of  electricity  is  produced  by  friction? 
Ans.   Static. 

20.  What  is  the  unit  of  electrical  current  called? 
Ans.   Ampere. 

21.  What  other  temperature  scale  is  there  besides  the  Fahrenheit  and  Centigrade 

scales? 
Ans.    Reaumur. 

22.  What  do  you  call  the  force  which  makes  a  body  fall  to  the  earth  when  it  is 

dropped? 
Ans.    Gravity. 

23.  What  do  you  call  a  space  from  which  most  of  the  air  has  been  pumped? 
Ans.    Vacuum. 

24.  What  class  of  substances  is  generally  easily  volatilized? 
Ans.    Liquids  (fluids). 

25.  What  liquid  is  generally  used  in  a  thermometer  for  measuring  temperature 

of  more  than  forty  degrees  below  zero? 
Ans.   Alcohol. 

26.  What  do  you  call  the  ratio  of  the  weight  of  a  substance  to  the  weight  of  the 

same  volume  of  water? 
Ans.   Specific-gravity. 

27.  What  is  the  unit  of  electrical  power  called? 
Ans.   Watt. 

28.  What  is  the  unit  of  mechanical  power  in  F.P.S.  units  called? 
Ans.   Foot-pound. 

29.  How  many  watt-hours  in  a  kilo-watt-hour? 
Ans.    1000. 

30.  What  do  you  call  the  product  of  a  force  multiplied  by  the  distance  through 

which  it  moves? 
Ans.    Work. 

31.  What  physical  property  has  a  body  which  causes  it  to  rebound  when  dropped 

from  a  height  upon  a  solid  surface? 
Ans.    Elasticity. 


56  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

32.  What  do  you  call  it  when  a  sound  wave  has  been  reflected  from  a  building  and 

comes  back  to  you  as  a  distinct  word? 
Ans.   Echo. 

33.  What  is  the  name  of  the  hypothesis  which  says  that  no  force  is  ever  created 

anew  or  ever  destroyed? 
Ans.    Conservation-of-energy. 

34.  What  do  you  call  the  force  which  holds  together  two  molecules? 
Ans.    Cohesion  (adhesion). 

35.  What  is  the  force  called  which  holds  a  soap  bubble  together? 
Ans.   Surface  tension  (capillary  attraction)'. 

36.  What  do  you  call  it  when  water  takes  up  a  quantity  of  gas? 
Ans.   Absorption. 

37.  What  do  you  call  that  part  of  a  body  about  which,  if  balanced,  it  would  be 

fiee  to  revolve  in  any  direction  with  equal  ease? 
Ans.   Center-of -gravity. 

38.  What  do  you  call  half  the  swing  of  a  pendulum's  arc? 
.Ans.   Amplitude. 

39.  How  many  foot-pounds  in  a  horse-power? 
Ans.   33000. 

40.  Who  formulated  the  hydrostatic  law  which  says  that  liquids  transmit  pres- 

sures equally  in  all  directions  and  at  right  angles  to  the  surface? 
A  ns.   Pascal. 

41.  If  the  pressure  on  a  block  of  wood  two  feet  below  the  surface  of  water  in  a 

tank  is  one  pound,  how  many  pounds  will  it  be  if  placed  four  feet 
below? 
Ans.   2. 

42.  A  block  2  cubic  centimeters  in  volume  weighs  8  grams  in  air;  how  many  grams 

will  it  weigh  in  water  at  4  degrees  Centigrade? 
Ans.   6. 

43.  How  many  feet  will  an  ordinary  suction  pump  lift  the  water? 
Ans.   From  27  to  32. 

44.  How  many  feet  per  second  is  the  velocity  of  sound  in  air? 
Ans.   From  1080  to  1150. 

45.  If  a  string  four  feet  long  vibrates  twenty  times  per  second,  how  many  times 

per  second  will  a  string  eight  feet  long  vibrate  if  under  the  same 
general  other  conditions? 
Ans.    10. 

46.  What  is  the  instrument  called  which  is  used  with  a  prism  to  measure  the 

wave  length  of  light? 
Ans.    Spectroscope  (spectrometer). 

47.  What  do  you  call  two  antagonistic  colors  which  produce  gray  when  mixed  on 

a  color  wheel? 
Ans.   Complementary  (supplementary). 

48.  What  do  you  call  the  force  which  makes  the  governor  on  a  steam  engine  act? 
Ans.   Centrifugal. 

49.  What  is  the  phenomenon  called  when  one  electric  current  in  a  wire  sets  up  a 

current  in  a  neighboring  wire? 
Ans.    Induction. 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  57 

50.  What  do  you  call  it  when  hydrogen  collects  on  the  positive  plate  of  a  battery 

and  thus  stops  the  flow  of  current? 
Ans.    Polarization. 

51.  What  is  the  decomposition  of  water  by  the  electric  current  called? 
Ans.    Electrolysis. 

52.  What  do  you  call  the  galvanometer  which  is  used  with  an  ordinary  magnetic 

compass  needle  to  measure  electric  current? 
Ans.   Tangent. 

53.  What  kind  of  electricity  is  it  called  when  electricity  is  generated  by  heating 

two  different  metals  connected  in  series? 
Ans.   Thermo  (thermo-electricity). 

54.  What  do  you  call  the  ratio  of  the  amount  of  heat  required  to  raise  a  given 

weight  of  metal  one  degree  Centigrade  to  that  required  to  raise  the 
same  weight  of  water  one  degree? 
Ans.   Specific-heat. 

55.  What  do  you  call  the  amount  of  heat  required  to  raise  the  temperature  of  one 

pound  of  water  one  degree  Fahrenheit? 
Ans.    British  thermal  unit  (B.  T.  U.) 

56.  What,  besides  the  volume  of  gas  in  a  container,  determines  its  pressure? 
Ans.   Temperature  (heat)  (warmth). 

One  may  note  that  not  only  informational  questions,  but  ques- 
tions involving  the  application  of  principles  can  be  easily  adapted 
to  this  form  of  test.  In  physics  the  use  of  formulae  as  a  means  of 
expressing  physical  laws  is  very  common.  One  aim  of  most  physics 
courses  is  to  teach  the  students  to  be  able  to  solve  these  equations  by 
the  simple  process  of  substitution  in  the  equation  of  values  deter- 
mined from  experiment,  obtaining  therefrom  one  unknown  term  of 
the  equation.  In  an  examination  there  is  little  merit  in  requiring  the 
solution  of  equations  which  will  involve  decimal  numbers.  By  using 
data  which  are  in  integral  numbers  and  which  are  multiples  of  quan- 
tities which  it  may  be  necessary  to  divide,  a  test  can  be  quickly  made 
of  the  pupil's  ability  to  apply  the  physical  principles  involved.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  problem,  "What  Fahrenheit  temperature  is  20° 
Centigrade  equal  to?"  In  order  to  transform  20°  Centigrade  into 

Fahrenheit  temperature,  the  pupil  has  merely  mentally  to  perform 

o 

the  multiplication  of  c  x  20  and  then  add  32°,  giving  an  even  quan- 
tity as  the  answer.  It  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  majority 
of  students  who  can  mentally  perform  that  operation  would  also  be 
able  to  perform  the  operation  with  the  aid  of  a  paper  and  pencil  if 
22°  rather  than  20°  were  the  Centigrade  temperature.  Whether  such 
is  generally  the  case  is  not  known.  The  relative  value  of  the  two 


58  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

types  of  tests  is  one  which  can  be  solved  only  by  the  method  of  cor- 
relation. When  evaluating  the  relative  merits  of  the  two  kinds  of 
problem  one  must  also  take  into  account  the  fact  that  possibly  two 
or  three  questions  of  the  trade  test  form  can  be  given  in  the  same 
time  as  one  of  the  other  form.  The  problem  in  the  last  analysis  is 
then  "Will  n  questions  of  the  trade-test  form,  in  the  same  amount  of 
examination  time,  give  us  more  or  less  knowledge  of  a  pupil's  ability 

in  physics,  than  will  -=  questions  requiring  extended  arithmetical 
o 

operations  to  be  performed  with  the  necessary  aid  of  paper  and 
pencil?"  Of  course  the  use  of  paper  and  pencil  in  computing  9  x  20° 
should  be  allowed  if  the  pupil  needs  them.  It  is  also  a  question 
whether  this  mental  type  of  computation  should  not  be  taught  in 
physics.  In  many  of  our  courses  in  science  and  mathematics  it  is 
possible  that  a  great  many  problems  which  can  be  solved  mentally 
or  with  little  effort  would  result  in  clearer  insight  into  the  principles 
and  the  uses  of  the  formulae  involved,  than  would  a  few  lengthy  prob- 
lems involving  complicated  arithmetical  operations.  Possibly  this 
point  is  one  of  the  main  differences  between  ordinary  school  teach- 
ing and  the  training  in  the  trade  which  a  boy  gets  in  industry  itself. 
In  industry  a  boy  learns  to  do  fractions  by  using  a  chart  which  con- 
verts the  fractions  into  decimals.  The  commercial  statistician,  rec- 
ognizing the  fallibility  of  "long-hand"  methods,  uses  a  calculating 
machine. 

Another  point  to  be  noticed  in  such  examinations  is  the  fact  that 
in  numerous  instances  the  formula  itself  can  be  given.  This  again  is 
the  practice  followed  in  industry.  Undoubtedly  the  most  valuable 
commercial  statistician  is  the  one  who  can  at  a  moment's  notice 
write  correctly  any  formula  which  he  needs.  The  expert  statistician, 
however,  whenever  complicated  formulae  are  involved,  resorts,  as 
does  the  machinist  in  the  machine  shop,  to  his  published  handbooks 
of  formulae,  tables,  and  the  like.  A  commercial  physicist  who  could 
remember  all  his  formulae  would  undoubtedly  be  able  to  do  a  larger 
amount  of  work  in  a  day  than  one  who  had  continually  to  resort  to 
books,  especially  if  the  formulae  were  to  be  found  in  numerous  books 
rather  than  in  one  hand-book.  Such  attempts  to  justify  imposing 
routine  upon  a  pupil  in  the  study  of  any  science  are  unworthy 
attempts  at  an  outworn  theory  of  discipline.  They  belong  to  the  old 
puritanic  philosophy  of  "discipline  for  discipline's  sake,  work  for 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  59 

work's  sake,"  and  do  not  fit  in  with  the  modern  philosophy  of 
letting  a  machine  do  the  work  and  reserving  the  more  costly 
human  machine  for  work  which  requires  planning  and  exec- 
utive ability. 

One  of  the  great  barriers  to  securing  large  amounts  of  data  on 
school  practice,  as  a  basis  for  revising  school  administration  and 
school  procedure,  is  the  large  amount  of  time  required  to  give,  score, 
and  evaluate  the  tests.  The  trade  test  form  of  question,  if  it  can  be 
effectively  applied  to  school  subjects,  has  much  to  be  said  in  its 
favor  on  this  score.  The  above  physics  test  clearly  indicates  the 
possibility  of  quickly  examining  a  student  on  a  very  great  many 
elements  of  the  course  pursued.  Testing  on  many  elements  is  a  much 
more  reliable  method  of  securing  an  accurate  evaluation  of  the  indi- 
vidual's ability  than  testing  on  only  a  very  limited  number,  as  is 
done  where  a  composition  is  written  in  response  to  each  question  of 
the  examination.  The  value  of  the  one-word-answer  method  in  edu- 
cational work  remains  of  course  to  be  proved.  On  the  point  of  time 
taken  to  give  the  test  and  to  score  the  results,  we  may  state  at  the 
outset  that  a  very  great  advantage  can  be  secured,  since  the  tests 
can  be  quickly  scored  by  stencil. 

The  use  of  the  underscoring,  or  multiple  choice  method,  of  giving 
an  examination  may  be  considered  on  the  basis  of  ease  of  scoring. 
This  method  is  even  easier  to  score  than  the  one-word-answer 
method.  The  value  of  a  test,  however,  should  not  be  sacrificed 
merely  for  the  ease  of  scoring.  Using  the  underscore  method,  a  pupil 
cannot  make  use  of  the  independent  thought  which  he  must  use 
when  answering  the  recall  or  trade  test  form  of  question.  Many 
more  items  of  information  can  be  touched  upon  by  using  the  under- 
score method  than  can  be  tested  in  the  same  time  with  the  one-word- 
answer  form  of  question.  Certain  types  of  information  may  be  easier 
to  present  with  the  one  type  of  examination  than  with  the  other. 

Another  point  of  practical  consideration  is  that  the  one-word- 
answer  form  of  question  cannot  be  used  very  often  in  the  recitation 
itself.  It  is  difficult  to  form  good  trade  test  questions  merely  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment,  and  the  same  difficulty  as  is  encountered  in  the 
trades  applies  here  also.  If  only  seventy-five  good  trade  questions 
can  ordinarily  be  discovered  in  a  trade,  then  certainly  not  that  num- 
ber will  be  found  in  the  ordinary  amount  of  subject  matter  covered 
by  a  class  in  physics  in  a  single  recitation.  It  is  possible  to  multiply 


6o  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

examples  of  trade  test  applications  of  formulae,  for  instance,  and  so 
occasionally  to  obviate  this  difficulty. 

Care  should  be  take  in  using  the  trade  test  form  of  question  that 
the  teaching  be  not  made  to  conform  to  the  arbitrary  standard  set 
up  by  the  trade  test.  Teaching  would  become  rather  artificial  if  the 
teacher  always  stressed  the  child's  giving  the  short  answer  form  of 
replies  which  the  trade  test  demands.  Teaching  would  become  life- 
less if  the  aim  of  the  teacher  were  directed  towards  merely  preparing 
the  pupils  to  answer  trade  test  questions.  This  applies,  however, 
with  equal  force  to  any  measure  of  an  educational  product;  the 
teaching  always  will  become  very  lifeless  if  the  teaching  is  directed 
towards  preparing  pupils  merely  to  pass  tests.  There  are  some 
obvious  exceptions,  however;  in  the  case  of  arithmetic  or  any  such 
mathematics  as  the  formulae  of  physics,  the  educational  aim  should 
certainly  be  to  enable  the  pupil  to  use  such  fundamental  operations, 
to  solve  equations  with  ease;  in  other  words,  to  use  his  acquired  skill 
in  exactly  the  same  manner  as  is  required  in  the  trade  test  question. 

The  one-word-answer  form  of  question  can  be  used  to  stimulate 
the  pupil  to  definiteness  of  expression.  Both  the  composition  type  of 
examination  question  and  the  trade  test  form  should  be  used,  per- 
haps alternating  the  one  with  the  other.  The  former  encourages 
clarity  of  expression  in  composition;  the  latter,  definiteness.  The 
latter  type  of  ability  is  perhaps  demanded  in  industry  to  a  greater 
extent  than  the  former.  The  leading  question,  a  type  of  question 
which  indefinitely  suggests  the  line  of  approach  of  the  student,  will 
continue  to  be  used  by  the  teacher  as  a  means  to  stimulate  the  child's 
curiosity  and  lead  him  on  to  rely  on  his  own  ability.  The  picture 
trade  test  method,  essentially  an  oral  method,  is  probably  sugges- 
tive of  some  possible  school  examination  methods  such  as  have  hith- 
erto not  been  attempted.  The  picture  lathe  hand  test  shown  on 
pages  8-1 4,  if  made  easier  than  it  is  now,  could  be  adapted  to  written 
examinations  in  that  subject  in  trade  schools.  The  picture  form  of 
examination  will  also  readily  adapt  itself  to  the  teaching  of  school 
subjects. 

Among  the  specific  criticisms  of  the  use  of  the  one-word-answer, 
the  picture,  or  the  multiple  choice  tests  in  examining  in  school  trade 
subjects  is  the  often  recurring  one  that  such  tests  are  tests  of  infor- 
mation mainly  and  do  not  require  independent  thought  and  organ- 
ization of  subject  matter.  It  is  true  that,  in  any  trade  examination 


Adaptation  to  School  Work  61 

made  up  on  these  methods,  a  casual  inspection  will  reveal  a  seeming 
preponderance  of  "informational"  questions.  This  objection  is  mini- 
mized by  the  consideration  that  the  importance  of  "thinking"  in 
doing  many  of  the  routine  tasks  of  industry  has  probably  been  over- 
estimated. The  most  successful  army  oral  questions  were  found  to 
be  the  questions  which  seemingly  best  sampled  the  everyday  habits 
and  knowledge  of  the  tradesman.  In  present-day  industry,  the 
workman's  task  and  the  directions  for  performing  it  are  worked  out 
for  him  in  advance ;  he  relies  largely  on  charts  and  mechanical  devices 
for  such  "figuring"  as  is  required;  moreover,  methods  of  scientific 
management  and  specialization  in  industry  are  continually  breaking 
up  trades  into  series  of  jobs,  each  of  which  is  so  simple  as  to  be  per- 
formed adequately  by  persons  of  only  fair  intellectual  or  mechanical 
ability. 

Finally,  the  whole  question  of  whether  or  not  many  informational 
questions  are  desirable  is  one  which  will  ultimately  be  settled  only  by 
the  correlation  resulting  from  experiments  in  which  both  "informa- 
tional" and  "thought  provoking  tests"  are  tried  with  the  same  people. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  thinking  takes  much  time,  while  writing 
immediately  recalled  information  takes  much  less  time  per  question. 
The  question  then  is,  "For  a  given  amount  of  examination  time,  will 
X  thought  provoking  questions  or  (X  -f  Y  )  informational  questions 
give  higher  correlations  with  demonstrated  ability  in  performance 
on  the  job?"  These  methods  are  very  apparently  of  limited  value 
in  the  recitation,  upon  which  should  be  thrown  the  chief  burden  of 
teaching  pupils  to  think  clearly. 

Psychologically,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  results  of  a  com- 
plicated thought  process  cannot  be  indicated  by  a  simple  one-word- 
answer  response  on  the  part  of  the  subject.  The  mental  arithmetic 
"reasoning"  problems,  to  be  found  in  great  abundance  in  any  ele- 
mentary arithmetic  text,  generally  fulfill  the  major  requirements  of 
a  good  one-word-answer  question.  Few  people  would  maintain  that 
these  are  not  thought  provoking.  It  merely  requires  more  skill  on 
the  part  of  the  question  maker  to  write  "thought  provoking"  ques- 
tions than  to  write  "informational"  questions.  • 

All  these  methods  are  subject  to  the  danger  of  preparation  by 
coaching.  The  one-word-answer  form  of  test  is  probably  more  sub- 
ject to  this  difficulty  than  the  picture  form.  Certain  forms  of  psy- 
chological tests  are  equally  subject  to  this  danger.  The  obvious 


62  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

solution  to  the  difficulty  lies  in  having  so  many  questions  of  each 
of  the  different  forms  that  alternative  tests  may  be  provided. 

The  tradesman  in  industry  has  seldom  had  an  incentive  for  coach- 
ing up  on  any  form  of  trade  examination ;  in  trade  school  procedure, 
examinations  are  expected  as  a  matter  of  course.  In  the  trade  school 
the  same  material  may  readily  be  formulated  in  time  into  four  forms 
of  test,  the  recall  one-word-answer,  recognition  or  multiple  choice, 
true-false,  and  picture,  in  order  to  overcome  undue  influence  of 
"coaching  for  examination."  The  coachability  of  a  test  is  probably 
in  inverse  proportion  to  the  number  of  thought  provoking  questions 
included,  obeying  thus  the  same  law  as  applies  in  general  to  all  ex- 
amination methods. 

Finally  we  may  dismiss  with  but  little  discussion  the  possible 
objection  that  the  acquisition  of  trade  knowledge  is  not  the  aim  of 
the  vocational  school.  The  present  avowed  aim  is  the  preparation  of 
youth  to  earn  a  livelihood  in  the  vocations.  We  have  before  indi- 
cated the  growing  need  in  industry  of  the  workman  possessed  of  a 
goodly  number  of  specific  habits,  skills  and  knowledges,  and  the 
growing  tendency  to  simplify  trades  to  such  an  extent  that  less  in- 
telligence and  less  "mechanical  ability"  is  required  for  success  on  the 
job  by  the  majority  of  workers. 


CHAPTER  III 
TESTS  OF  TRADE  CAPACITY  OR  PROMISE 

The  possibility  of  predicting  a  person's  probable  success  at  a  job 
depends  upon  a  relatively  fixed  condition  of  the  job,  a  knowledge  of 
the  requirements  of  the  job  in  the  way  of  qualifications  of  its  workers, 
and  methods  of  measuring  human  qualifications  and  evaluating 
these  in  terms  of  degrees  of  success.  Historically  there  have  been 
three  stages  in  the  methods  of  attacking  the  problem,  each  of  which 
has  been  characterized  by  developments  in  the  methods  of  measur- 
ing the  job  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  worker  on  the  other. 

In  the  first  stage,  which  we  may  call  the  "mental  type"  stage,  it 
was  believed  that  success  at  a  given  job  was  possible  only  for  per- 
sons of  a  given  mental  type.  Efforts  were  accordingly  directed 
towards  determining  the  mental  types  best  suited  to  given  jobs,  and 
toward  determining  to  what  mental  type  a  given  person  belonged. 

This  stage  gave  way  to  a  second  stage  in  which  was  attempted  an 
analysis  of  the  lives  of  successful  and  unsuccessful  men,  in  order  to 
discover  what  psychological  or  physiological  trait  or  traits  might  be 
responsible  for  their  success  or  lack  of  success.  These  methods  were 
largely  a  failure.  Statistically,  the  difficulty  with  them  is  that  any 
one  such  single  trait  is  very  likely  to  have  only  a  very  low  correla- 
tion with  job  success.  On  the  side  of  measuring  the  job,  efforts  were 
made  to  classify  jobs  according  to  the  predominant  traits  of  char- 
acter and  mental  ability  necessary  for  success  on  the  job. 

This  second  stage  then  merged  into  the  third,  in  which,  not  single 
traits,  but  combinations  of  traits,  are  considered  responsible  for  the 
degree  of  success  on  the  job.  The  development  of  tests  of  general 
intelligence  marks  the  turning  point  in  this  stage.  The  general 
intelligence  tests  were  found  to  be  good  predicters  of  general  school 
success  of  school  children,  and  to  be  of  value  in  detecting  children 
of  abnormal  mentality — sub-normal  or  super-normal  ability  to 
profit  by  the  instruction  received.  From  this  it  was  but  a  step  to 
infer  that  general  intelligence  scores  would  be  found  very  significant 
in  placing  persons  properly  in  industry.  We  are  at  present  in  this 
third  stage  but  rapidly  entering  a  fourth,  in  which  the  emphasis  will 
be  placed  upon  the  development  of  statistical  methods  for  the 


64  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

evaluating  into  one  composite  score  of  fitness  for  the  job  all  va- 
rieties of  facts  about  an  individual:  his  intelligence,  parentage, 
physical  capacity,  formal  education,  informal  trade  training  in 
mechanical  manipulation  of  his  environment  and  so  on.  Evidence 
has  been  accumulating  rapidly  in  the  last  few  years  to  point  to  the 
fact  that  individual  traits  may  singly  correlate  but  slightly  with  job 
success,  but  that  a  composite  of  such  traits  may  correlate  rather 
highly  with  job  success.  The  method  of  partial  correlation  enables 
one  to  make  the  best  possible  mathematical  prediction  (assuming 
linearity  of  regression  lines)  of  job  success  from  a  number  of  vari- 
able measures  or  tests.  The  statistical  requirements  for  a  composite 
test  of  high  predictive  value  are  that  the  correlations  of  the  tests 
with  the  criterion  of  success  be  high  in  relation  to  the  intercorrela- 
tions  among  the  tests  themselves.  Furthermore,  there  is  coming  to 
be  stressed  the  fact  that  the  reported  correlation  of  the  composite 
test  score  with  the  independent  measure  of  job  success  can  only  be 
interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  range  of  ability  covered  by  the  test 
subjects;  or,  concretely,  that  a  correlation  of  .60,  where  only  eighth 
grade  children  are  involved,  indicates  as  good  a  composite  test  as 
would  be  shown  by  a  much  higher  correlation  if  children  from  all 
the  grades  were  included. 

On  the  side  of  measuring  the  job,  there  has  arisen,  just  at  the 
transition  point  from  the  third  to  the  fourth  stage  of  the  develop- 
ment of  human  measurement,  the  method  of  job  analysis.  In  its 
present  best  developed  stage,  the  job  is  described  in  terms  of  con- 
crete job  processes  or  equally  concrete  and  measurable  human  quali- 
fications. Already  we  have  heard  hints  of  the  possibilities  of  develop- 
ment of  methods  of  measuring  jobs  by  a  scale  of  composite  com- 
parable measures  for  all  jobs,  similar  to  the  scales  already  being 
developed  for  human  measurement.  Fitting  the  worker  to  the  job 
is  only  half  of  the  larger  social  problem  involved  in  vocational  guid- 
ance. In  many  cases,  jobs  should  be  modified  to  suit  workers.  Such 
modification  will  tend  to  come  about  automatically  as  soon  as  the 
job  analysis  has  caught  up,  in  its  process  of  development,  with 
human  measurement  and  entered  likewise  into  the  fourth  stage. 

The  names  of  many  experimenters  are  connected  with  the  develop- 
ment of  present  methods  of  predicting  school  success  by  the  use  of 
composite  scales.  The  application  of  like  methods  in  predicting 
industrial  success  has  followed  the  former,  and  hence  has  fewer 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  65 

names  associated  with  it.  Mention  might  be  made  of  the  names  of 
Thorndike,  Scott,  Thurstone,  Link,  Burt,  Marcus,  and  Otis. 

Some  six  years  ago  Dr.  Thorndike  devised  and  put  into  use  a 
series  of  intelligence  tests  for  the  selection  of  clerical  workers  for  the 
Metropolitan  Life  Insurance  Company.  Among  the  tests  were 
tests  not  only  of  general  intelligence  but  of  abilities  similar  to  those 
employed  by  clerical  workers  in  their  work.  The  examination,  con- 
structed in  alternative  forms  in  order  as  far  as  possible  to  overcome 
coaching  difficulties,  is  reported  to  be  giving  successful  results  after 
six  years  of  trial,  and  yielding  correlations  with  job  success  of 
probably  over  .65. 

Dr.  Scott  has  devised  for  a  number  of  firms  composite  scales  for 
the  selection  of  salesmen  and  clerical  workers.  His  tests  have  often 
included  the  use  of  some  form  of  group  judgment  or  rating  scale  of 
important  character  qualities  presumably  not  tested  by  the  psy- 
chological tests. 

Dr.  Thurstone  has  developed  a  widely  used  test  for  predicting 
clerical  ability.  During  the  war,  his  researches  into  the  qualifications 
required  for  telegraphers  involved  physiological  or  psycho-physical 
tests  as  well  as  psychological  tests. 

Dr.  Link  1  reports  many  correlations  sufficiently  high  to  justify 
the  belief  that  composite  scales  of  various  tests,  selected  on  a  "trial 
and  error"  basis,  may  be  used  to  predict  the  chance  of  success  in 
many  industrial  jobs,  chiefly  of  a  repetitive  motor  or  manual 
type. 

Dr.  Burt 2  reports  on  the  success  of  weighting  tests  by  the  method 
of  partial  correlation,  using  different  weightings  of  the  same  tests 
for  different  jobs,  by  means  of  which  the  probable  degree  of  success 
of  a  given  worker  in  the  rubber  industry  may  be  predicted  for  a 
number  of  jobs.  Essentially  the  same  technique  was  developed  by 
Dr.  Thorndike  during  the  war,  for  rating  members  of  the  S.  A.  T.  C. 
for  different  branches  of  the  army. 

Mr.  Marcus  3  has  shown  that  a  composite  of  psychological  tests 
may  be  more  efficient  in  predicting  the  probable  success  of  certain 

1  Link,  H.  C.,  Employment  Psychology,  1919. 

2  Burt,   H.   E.,   "Employment  Psychology  in  the  Rubber   Industry,"  Journal  of 
Applied  Psychology,  Vol.  4,  No.  i,  pp.  1-7. 

3  Marcus,  L.,   "Vocational  Selection  for  Specialized  Tasks,"  Journal  of  Applied 
Psychology,  Vol  4,  Nos.  2  and  3,  pp.  186-201. 


66  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

manual  clerical  workers  than  the  ordinary  civil  service  examinations 
given  these  workers. 

Dr.  Otis  4  has  devised  a  clerical  test  which  he  reports  as  being  val- 
uable in  predicting  success  of  clerical  workers  in  a  large  silk  mill.  He 
also  reports  "zero"  correlations  between  a  composite  score  of  "intel- 
ligence" tests  and  performance  on  the  job  of  manual  workers  in  the 
same  silk  mill.  He  thus  concludes  that  intelligence  is  not  an  impor- 
tant consideration  in  success  in  such  jobs.  A  number  of  attenuating 
factors  enter  into  his  results. 

With  all  the  above  developments  in  the  methods  of  measuring 
human  fitness  for  jobs,  more  time  should  be  devoted  in  the  future 
to  methods  of  measuring  jobs.  The  lines  of  development  in  job 
analysis  will  be  towards : 

1.  Securing  greater  definitness  of  descriptions,  as  measures  of  the 
job  which  can  be  verified  by  other  competent  persons. 

2.  Determining  methods  of  comparing  the  relative  merits  of  one 
job  with  another,  with  the  practical  point  of  view  of  eliminating  the 
discrepancies  in  wages  and  working  conditions  of  jobs  which  require 
approximately  the  same  composite  of  talents  in  their  workers. 

3.  Rating  jobs  on  scales  of  physiological,  psychological,  and  socio- 
logical qualifications  of  workers. 

4.  Providing  for  a  series  of  gradations  of  preferences  for  jobs  by 
workers  on  the  grounds  of  monotony,  cleanliness,  and  all  those  job 
conditions  which  affect  the  emotional  life  of  the  worker. 

5.  Providing  for  formal  methods  of  training  talent  for  the  job 
among  the  workers,  and  of  rewarding  periodically  and  automatically 
any  acquisition  of  better  qualifications  for  the  job  by  job  promotion, 
either  in  wages,  responsibility  or  social  recognition. 

JOB  ANALYSIS 

The  term  "job  analysis"  is  used  rather  loosely.  By  it  is  meant,  as 
we  have  more  or  less  implied  above,  the  entire  system  of  industrial 
and  personnel  research,  sometimes  referred  to  as  a  "labor  audit."  In 
its  narrowest  sense,  job  analysis,  made  primarily  for  the  purpose  of 
hiring  and  training,  transferring  or  promoting  employees,  is  the 
analytical  process  of  acquiring  industrial  facts.  This  is  to  be  care- 
fully distinguished  from  the  products  of  the  analytical  process,  such 

4  Otis,  A.  S.,  "The  Selection  of  Mill  Workers  with  Mental  Tests,"  Journal  of  Applied 
Psychology,  Vol  4,  No.  4,  pp.  339-341- 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  67 

as  job  specifications  and  personnel  specifications,  which  are  written 
reports  of  the  work  done  by  such  analytical  methods.1 

Job  specifications  are  formulated  groups  of  facts  which  relate  to 
the  nature  and  conditions  of  the  work,  the  duties  of  the  worker  and 
certain  conditions  of  service,  such  as  pay,  hours  and  promotions. 
The  personnel  specifications  present  the  same  type  of  facts  for  the 
worker,  for  example,  his  qualifications,  allowable  handicaps,  and 
required  training.  Only  as  an  abstract  logical  analysis  are  the  per- 
sonnel specifications  to  be  thought  of  independently  of  the  job 
specifications.  Both  must  be  developed  at  the  same  time;  both  are 
logically  used  together  in  an  attempt  to  fit  the  job  and  the  worker 
to  each  other. 

Every  job  description  should  contain  at  least  a  minimum  amount 
of  description  of  the  various  operations,  tools,  problems  and  the 
like,  expected  of  the  worker  in  the  job.  In  addition,  a  condensed 
personnel  classification  should  be  included  if  there  are  any  special 
requirements  on  the  part  of  the  worker  which  he  himself  can  easily 
and  objectively  measure  to  see  if  he  fits  up  with  the  demands  of  the 
job.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the  amount  of  education  required. 

As  a  part  of  the  job  specifications,  whether  or  not  included  in  the 
final  typewritten  or  printed  job  specifications,  or  whether  given  on 
an  independent  new  worker  initiation  sheet,  there  should  be  included 
all  the  information  which  the  new  applicant  will  want  to  have  about 
the  job  outside  of  the  duties  of  the  job  itself:  the  minimum  and 
maximum  wage  to  be  expected,  the  piece  work  rates,  the  average 
length  of  time  required  by  workers  of  average  intelligence  to  learn 
the  job,  the  average  length  of  time  spent  at  the  job  before  promo- 
tion, the  working  hours,  statements  in  regard  to  holidays  and  vaca- 
tions, and  social,  educational,  industrial  or  other  privileges  which 
may  be  granted  the  worker. 

There  should  be  collected  other  items  which  have  a  bearing  upon 
the  applicant's  contentedness  while  on  the  job,  such,  for  instance,  as 
whether  or  not  the  worker  is  required  to  sit  or  stand  most  of  the 
time  on  the  job,  whether  the  work  is  dusty,  hot,  damp  or  otherwise 
disagreeable,  by  what  type  of  men  the  job  is  manned,  referring  to 
such  things  as  nationality  and  color. 

1  An  excellent  summary  of  all  job  analysis  work  to  date  is  given  in  Meine,  F.,  Job 
Specifications,  Federal  Board  for  Vocational  Education,  Employment  Management 
Series,  No.  3,  Bulletin  45,  1919.  See  also  Tead,  Ordway,  The  Labor  Audit,  Employ- 
ment Management  Series  No.  8,  Bulletin  43,  1920. 


68  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

In  the  personnel  specifications  should  be  included  the  degree  of 
intelligence  and  the  amount  of  education,  experience  or  technical 
knowledge  required  on  the  part  of  the  applicant,  and  factors  regard- 
ing the  work  itself,  translated  into  human  qualities,  such  as  the 
height,  the  amount  of  strength,  the  quality  of  sight  and  hearing,  and 
other  measurable  physical  characteristics  that  may  be  required  on 
the  part  of  the  applicant. 

The  utmost  care  should  be  taken  to  see  that  whatever  goes  into 
the  job  and  personnel  specifications,  should  consist  of  items,  which 
can  be  measured  with  some  reasonable  degree  of  accuracy  by  the 
people  who  will  have  to  use  them.  Too  frequently  have  there  been 
long,  wordy  descriptions  of  the  job  as  being  one  which  required 
"speed,  endurance,  industry,  skillful  manipulation,  etc.,  etc."  The 
analysis  can  thus  be  worded  in  such  skillful  manner  that  even  a 
sophisticated  job  analysis  expert  will  be  misled  by  the  fluency  of  the 
phrases.  The  principle  always  to  be  followed  is  simple:  Whenever 
tempted  to  use  a  term  like  "skillful  manipulation,"  the  job  analyst 
should  always  ask  himself,  "How  much  skillful  manipulation  is 
necessary";  and  "Can  the  person  who  is  to  use  the  job  specifications 
in  any  way  measure  this  same  trait." 

The  following  questionnaire,  only  a  beginning  in  this  field  rather 
than  a  completed  product,  will  suggest  some  of  the  minimum  items 
of  information  which  it  may  be  worth  while  to  collect  in  the  machine- 
like  trades.  This  questionnaire  is  designed  for  a  preliminary  general 
job  analysis  with  the  expectation  of  later  following  it  with  special- 
ized surveys  of  sanitation,  training  and  psychological  investigation. 
Note  that  as  many  of  the  items  as  possible  are  in  the  form  of  specific 
answers  to  specific  questions  for  underlining  and  that  space  is  always 
left  for  necessary  unforseen  classifications.  Such  items  as  have  no 
claim  to  objectivity  may  be  generally  recognized  by  having  lines  in 
place  of  descriptive  answers  to  be  underscored.  Notice  also  the 
emphasis  upon  learning  just  where  and  how  all  available  records 
of  the  job  and  workers  are  kept. 

GENERAL  JOB  ANALYSIS  QUESTIONNAIRE  SHEET 

Present 

Name  of  Trade Symbol Code 

General  Specific  Number 

Reported  by Date Dept Foreman 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise 


69 


I.    THE  JOB. 

A.  Analysis  of  the  Job  in  the  scheme  of: 

1.  Classification  of  jobs: 

2.  Products  produced  by  worker: 

3.  Machine  (Pictures  of  all  types  of  machine)  Types  are: 

4.  Number  of  workers  required  per  production  unit: Unit  is: 

5.  Number  of  workers  hired  in  this  occupation  in  this  department  on 

this  date : 

B.  Similar  Occupations: 

C.  Substitute  Occupations: 

D.  Physical  Conditions  of  the  Job : 

1.  Place  where  work    MACHINE  DESK  FLOOR 

is  done:  BENCH 

2.  Posture:  STANDING         SITTING          STOOPING 

CLIMBING         WALKING       LIFTING 
PULLING  SHOVING 

3.  Activity:  WALKING          LIFTING          PULLING 

SHOVING            CLIMBING      KICKING 
FINGER-MOVEMENT 
WRIST-MOVEMENT    

4.  Physical    Condi-    WET  DRY  DUSTY 

tions:  OILY  Fumes  of VAPOR. 

LIVE-STEAM      HOT                  COLD 
NOISY                  DIRTY             STICKY 
CLAMMY  ELECTRICAL 

5.  Lighting:  Source Location 

Intensity Glare Shadows 

6.  Cutting  or  Lubri-     What? When  used? 

eating  fluids:         

7.  Feeds:  MACHINE-FEED      HAND-FEED      SEMI- 

AUTOMATIC  

a.  Is  speed  independent  of  the  operator?     YES     NO 

b.  What  is  mechanical  maximum?     (Explain) 


7O  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

8.    Rythm:  REPETITIVE         NON-REPETITIVE 

a.  Is  raw  material  uniform?       YES      NO      (Explain) . 

b.  Is  each  operation  uniform?     YES     NO     (Explain) . 


9.    Monotony: 


10.    Motion    Study    (chronological    sequence    of    operations.    Describe 
briefly) 


11.  Fatigue: 

a.  Degree Type 

b.  No.  of  cycle  repetitions  per  HOUR 

c.  Size  of  unit  of  production 

d.  Amount  of  lifting  done Weight  of  piece  handled.  . . 

e.  Estimated  number  of  footpounds  of  work  done  per  day. .  . 

12.  Members  used: 

a.  BOTH  HANDS        LEFT  HAND  RIGHT  HAND 

b.  BOTH  LEGS  LEFT  LEG  RIGHT  LEG 


E.    Miscellaneous  Conditions  of  Job: 

1.  Does  worker  have  to  supply  any  tools,  clothing,  etc?     YES     NO 

Specify: 

2.  Chairs,  foot  rests,  back  rests,  arm  rests,  coat  racks,  eating  places: 


3.    Impediments  of  hair,  clothing,  rings,  jewelry,  etc. 


4.  Vacations: 

5.  Holidays:   FOUR  REGULAR 

6.  Night  work:   Amount. Rate Hours  worked . 

7.  Overtime:       Amount Rate 

8.  Sunday  work: 

9.  Rest  periods: 

10.  Lunch  interval: 

a.   What  do  workers  do  during  lunch  interval? 

11.  Deductions,  deposits,  fines: 

12.  Tardiness:   Amt Records  of,  (where  and  how  kept?) 

13.  Absences:    Amt Records  of,  (where  and  how  kept?) 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  71 

14.  Are  workers  allowed  to  talk  to  each  other  during  work?  (describe): 

15.  Do  mechanical  factors  of  job  preclude  possibility  of  same  production 

with  shorter  hours?  Foreman's  opinion Interviewer's  opinion 

F.    Accident  and  Health  Hazards: 

i.   Accident  risk  (nature  and  causes): 


2.  Percentage  of  accidents  to  workers:    (Foreman's  opinion) 

3.  Safety  devices  and  use: 

4.  Attention  to  job  required  to  prevent  accident: 

5.  Liability  to  accident  through  carelessness  of  others: 

6.  Health  hazards  (nature  and  causes) : 

7.  Occupational  diseases: 

G.    Inspection: 

1.  How  often  is  product  inspected? By  whom? 

2.  Type  of  inspection:  LIMIT-GAGE  MICROMETER 

3.  Responsibility  for  inspection : 

4.  Are  finished  products  turned  back  on  account  of  inspection? 

(Describe) 

5.  How  often  are  machine  and  tools  inspected? 

By  whom? 

6.  Spoiled  work:   Amount Cost 

Cause:   HUMAN    MACHINE 

7.  Are  records  of  spoiled  work  kept?    YES    NO    (Describe) 

8.  Can  spoiled  work  be  traced  to  the  operator  producing  it?    YES    NO 

(Describe) 

H.    Production,  Turnover,  Security  of  Job: 

1.  Regularity  of  work:  seasonal lay-offs 

2.  What  are  grounds  for  discharge  of  worker? 

3.  Production: 

a.  Average  production  of  workers  on  job :    (Foreman's  estimate) 

b.  Minimum: Maximum: 

4.  Foreman's  opinion  as  to  whether  greater  production  possible  and 

desirable:. . 


72  Trade  Tests  in  Education 


5.  Production  asked  by  Planning  Dept.: 

6.  Interchangeability  of  tools  and  machines,  idle  machines: 

7.  Rush  orders  (nature) : 

8.  a.   Is  worker  idle  while  setting  up  machinery,  tool  setting,  in- 

spection, repairs?     (Describe) 

b.    Does  he  rest  in  such  intervals?     (Describe) 

9.  Labor  turnover  on  this  job  (Foreman's  estimate) : 

a.  Average  length  of  employment  of  worker  on  this  job.  (Fore- 

man's estimate) 

b.  If  men  and  women  are  both  employed,  which  stay  longer? 

(Foreman's  estimate) 

10.  a.   Is  production  adaptable  to  count  YES     NO     (Describe) .... 

b.   Are  production  records  kept?     YES     NO     Where? 

How  accurate? 

11.  Average  length  of  training  for  average  worker  to  become  profi- 

cient on  job 

12.  Cost  of  labor  turnover:.  . 


I.     Labor  Supply: 

1.  Any  apprentices  (understudies)  being  trained? 

2.  Deficiencies  in  qualifications. of  workers  (Foreman):. 


3.  Will    supply    meet    demand    in    future?     (Foreman)    YES     NO 

(Describe) 

4.  Source  of  supply: 

5.  Transfers:  Amount Per  cent  formed  of  turnover 

6.  How  are  workers  selected  (function  of  foreman) 


II.  THE  WORKER: 

J.     Description  of  Duties: 

General  duties  (Describe  briefly): 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  73 

Special  duties  (if  sub-group  of  larger  group,  e.g.,  dial  press  tool  setter 
vs.  blanking  gang  press  tool  setter) : 


Miscellaneous: 

1 .  Set  tools : 

2.  Oiling: 

3-  Belts: 

4.  Brakes : 

5.  Sharpen  tools:. 

6.  Repairing:.  .  . . 

7.  Inspecting:.  .  . 

8.  Teaching:.  .  .  . 

9.  Safety: 

10.  Responsibility: 


K.    Qualifications : 

Previous  trade  training  required: 

1.  Blue  prints: Drawings: 

2.  Order  tools : 

3.  Measuring  tools: 

4.  Names  of  tools,  machines,  parts: 

5.  Knowledge  of  materials  (qualities  and  quantities):.  .  . 

6.  Teaching: 

7.  Inspection : 

Requirements  of  schooling,  intelligence,  training  on  the  job. 

1.  Is  the  job:     SKILLED     UNSKILLED 

2.  SCHOOLING: 

3.  Technical  training: 

4.  Deficiencies  in  TRAINING  of  workers  (Interviewer): 


5.  Necessary  previous  experience  in  same  or  allied  job: 

What  job? 

6.  Average  length  of  time  for  average  green  hand  to  come  up  to  average 

piece  rate  earnings : 

7.  Are  motions,  methods,  feeds  standardized? 

8.  Qualifications  for  a  worker  to  be  trained  (reasons) : 

9.  Intelligence: 

10.   Training  on  job:  amount By  whom  given? . 


74  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

11.  How  introduced  into  new  job? 

12.  Is  new  worker  followed  up  in  ten  days?     YES     NO 

13.  Any   written   or  oral    instructions  to  new  employee?      YES  NO 
By  whom? What? 

14.  Required  ability  in  mathematics:   COPY  FIGURES,  ADD,  SUB- 

TRACT,    MULTIPLY,     DIVIDE,     DECIMALS,     SQUARE 
ROOT,  SOLVE  FORMULAE,  CALCULUS. 

15.  Nationality  preferred  (foreman's  reasons) : 

1 6.  Literacy: GIVE-ORDERS  READ  ORDERS 

UNDERSTAND-VERBAL-ORDERS 

Physical : 

1.  Eyesight:  acuity glasses  an  objection color 

2.  Hearing:     acuity 

3.  Sex:   M  F  (Reasons) 

4.  Height: 

5.  Weight: 

6.  Arms:   length strength 

7.  Fingers:   length dexterity size 

8.  Fingernails:    toughness 

Wear  fingerstalls?     YES     NO 

9.  General  strength: 

10.  Strength  of  back: Lifting 

11.  Endurance: 

12.  Agility  in  moving  about: 

13.  Sensitiveness:   touch pressure weight 

14.  Attention  required : 

15.  Personal  appearance: 

16.  Physical  defects  disqualifying: 

17.  Physical  defects  allowable: 

1 8.  Can  women  do  the  job?     YES     NO Ever  tried?     YES     NO 

Foreman's  opinion  of  results: 

19.  Can  cripple,  aged,  or  physical  defective  do  the  job?     YES     NO 
Remarks: 

20.  Can  mental  defective  do  the  job?        YES     NO     Remarks: 

21.  Can  left-handed  person  do  the  job?     YES     NO     Remarks: 

L.    Wages  and  Promotion: 

1.  Line  of  promotion: 

2.  Do  workers  know  line  of  promotion? 

3.  Do  promotions  come  unasked  for? 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  75 

4.  Any  definite  plan  of  promotion? 

5.  Wages: 

Basis  of  Pay 

Lowest        Highest       Average: 

Day  rate  

Piece  rate  

Contingent  rate  

6.     Nature  of  contingent  rate: 

a.  On  day  rate: 

b.  On  piece  rate  standard: 

c.  On  piece  rate  earnings: 

7.  Average  daily  earnings : 

8.  Average  weekly  earnings: 

9.  Average  yearly  earnings: 

10.  Number  of  all  on  this  job  receiving  piece  rates: 

n.  How  long  before  green  hand  put  on  piece  rates? 

12.  Stereotyped  wages  in  production: 

13.  Can  operator  trained  on  one  type  of  machine  operate  another 

14.  Does  this  job  prepare  operator  for  higher  job? 

15.  Are     wages     dependent     upon:       WORKER'S-OWN-ABILITY 

GROUP-SPIRIT.. 


It  will  be  noted  that  much  information  is  of  the  purely  subjective 
type,  as,  for  instance,  "attention  required,  degree  of  fatigue,  etc., 
etc."  At  the  present  time  but  little  better  can  be  done  than  these 
subjective  judgments  which  approach  dangerously  close  to  the  type 
of  character  analysis  which  we  have  criticized  so  severely.  It  is  desir- 
able to  find  objective  methods  for  expressing  these  items  of  a  job.  It 
would  seem  possible  to  devise  a  very  simple  objective  rating  scale 
for  monotony,  for  instance: 

DEGREE  DEFINITION 

1  as  monotonous  as  a  dial  press  job. 

2  as  monotonous  as  a  production  lathe  job. 

3  as  monotonous  as  a  criminal  lawyer's  job. 


76  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

Such  a  scale  with  intermediate  degrees,  carefully  and  thought- 
fully worked  out,  would  yield  results  by  means  of  which  various  jobs 
might  be  semi-objectively  compared  for  monotony.  Outside  of  being 
valuable  in  turnover  investigations,  such  information  is  of  little  or  no 
value  in  hiring,  since  no  one  is  competent  and  no  test  method  is 
available  which  will  predict  with  surety  in  advance  whether  an  appli- 
cant will  work  contentedly  or  not  at  monotonous  work.  If,  however, 
an  applicant  should  report  to  the  interviewing  examiner  that  he 
had  worked  steadily  for  X  years  at  a  job  F,  which  the  examiner 
knows  is  a  job  with  degree  of  monotony  i^,  then  he  would  have 
some  assurance  that  the  applicant  would  be  satisfied  on  a  similar 
job  Z  with  the  same  degree  of  monotony.  Men  do  not  fall  into  two 
clearly  defined  groups,  the  honest  or  the  dishonest,  but  are  of  many 
degrees  of  honesty;  jobs  likewise  are  not  monotonous  or  varied,  but 
of  all  degrees  of  monotony.  Furthermore,  the  job  analyst  must  not 
fail  to  make  the  subtle  distinction  that  a  job,  monotonous  to  himself 
to  the  extent  T,  may  have  a  lesser  monotony  to  the  worker  who 
works  at  that  job  as  represented  by  the  expression,  T  —  K. 

There  is  unlimited  room  for  improvement  in  the  methods  of 
measuring  jobs.  This  statement  does  not  imply  that  there  is  not 
also  room  for  improvement  of  tests  used  in  measuring  human  capaci- 
ties. One  line  of  development,  as  yet  but  little  used,  is  that  of  meas- 
uring by  standardized  tests  a  worker's  performance  on  the  job.  In 
the  training  school  of  industry  this  aspect  of  human  measurement 
would  take  the  line  of  measurement  of  product  turned  out  after  a 
given  amount  of  trade  instruction  on  standard  test  jobs  of  produc- 
tion; in  the  trade  school,  it  will  mean  performance  tests,. of  a  stand- 
ardized nature,  given  to  the  students  in  trade  courses  to  measure 
their  ability  in  the  course  taken;  while  in  the  vocational  guidance 
bureau,  it  will  mean  subjecting  boys  and  girls  to  trade  instruction 
with  the  sole  purpose  of  testing  their  ability  to  learn  the  trade  proc- 
esses taught.  It  has  been  the  privilege  of  the  author  to  become 
acquainted  with  an  educational  experiment  which  combines  both 
the  latter  purposes  in  a  "trade  extension  school  for  vocational  gui- 
dance." 

EVALUATION   OF   VOCATIONAL   GUIDANCE   TESTS 

At  the  Manhattan  Trade  School  for  Girls,  New  York  City,  there  is 
being  conducted  one  of  the  most  interesting  experiments  to  be  found 
anywhere  in  this  country  in  extension  education  and  vocational 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  77 

guidance  by  means  of  tests.  The  uniqueness  of  the  plan,  the  numbers 
of  pupils  given  advice,  and  the  fact  that  tests  are  being  used  actually 
in  basing  action  upon  them,  rather  than  as  mere  interesting  but 
unused  researches,  entitles  this  extension  department  to  an  enviable 
position  among  the  foremost  vocational  guidance  programs  to  be 
found  to-day.  Every  second  week  throughout  the  school  year,  a  new 
group  of  from  100  to  120  eighth  grade  public  school  girls  from  various 
public  schools  of  New  York  City  come  to  this  extension  department 
for  a  two- weeks  course.  The  aim  of  the  department  is  both  to  in- 
struct the  pupils  on  various  vocational  opportunities  and  to  test 
by  means  of  performance  tests  their  ability  to  learn  a  few  funda- 
mental things  about  a  limited  number  of  these  trades  or  vocations. 

The  teachers  of  this  extension  department  make  occasional  visits 
to  the  industries,  working  on  follow-up  reports  of  girls  placed  in 
industry  by  the  school,  and  thus  become  acquainted  with  the  facts 
of  the  various  industries  touched  upon  in  the  extension  school  course. 
Thus  information  becomes  available  in  regard  to  average  wages, 
range  of  wages,  trade  opportunities,  active  and  dull  seasons,  sani- 
tary and  other  working  conditions  of  the  various  trades.  These  facts 
are  imparted  to  the  girls  by  the  respective  commercial  and  indus- 
trial teachers.  The  information  given  on  commercial  work  covers 
information  on  the  many  subdivisions  of  commercial  work;  for  in- 
stance, the  positions  of  typist,  stenographer,  secretary,  telephone 
operator,  computing  machine  operator,  filing  clerk,  bookkeeper,  etc. 

In  addition  to  this  work,  educative  and  highly  desirable  as  a  part 
of  the  vocational  guidance  program,  the  larger  part  of  the  two  weeks 
time  is  given  over  to  the  performance  tests.  The  general  plan  of  the 
tests  is  first  to  give  oral  instructions  in  the  method  of  doing  a  funda- 
mental operation,  and  then  to  judge  subjectively  the  excellence  of  the 
objective  product  produced. 

The  pupils  are  rated  by  the  teachers  at  approximately  the  end  of 
every  hour's  work  during  the  fifty  hours  spent  in  this  extension 
school.  In  some  cases  it  is  possible  to  secure  independent  ratings  of 
two  different  teachers  of  the  same  industrial  subject,  hand  sewing, 
for  instance.  This  makes  for  more  reliable  ratings  when  the  double 
ratings  are  possible.  The  great  amount  of  rating  required  neces- 
sitates that  the  teacher  become  acquainted  as  rapidly  as  possible  with 
the  pupils.  What  might  to  the  outside  observer  appear  as  an  exces- 
sive amount  of  rating  is  therefore  very  valuable  in  insuring  that 


78  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

judgments  will  be  made  in  as  few  cases  as  possible  without  knowing 
pupils.  The  large  amount  of  rating  required  means  that  the  time 
that  could  be  devoted  to  objective  scoring  of  products  is  very  limited ; 
in  fact,  to  the  extent  that  at  the  present  time  no  objective  scoring  is 
done.  Objective  scoring,  using  scales,  tests  scored  by  stencil  or 
otherwise,  could  be  adopted  only  by  devoting  to  such  work  time  now 
spent  in  subjective  scoring. 

As  a  final  record  of  each  pupil,  a  qualification  card  is  made  out  in 
duplicate.  One  copy  of  this  card  is  retained  in  the  files  of  the  exten- 
sion school  for  possible  later  reference  or  follow-up  work;  the  other 
is  sent  to  the  principal  of  the  school  from  which  the  pupils  came,  to 
to  be  used  by  him  in  supplementing  his  own  guidance  given  to  grad- 
uating pupils.  An  evaluation  of  the  items  of  this  qualification  card 
is  here  undertaken  in  an  effort  to  determine  the  value  of  the  several 
tests,  both  theoretically  and  practically,  with  the  hope  of  suggesting 
improvements  in  the  present  tests  or  test  technique,  with  the  prac- 
tical point  in  view  of  securing  (a)  better  predictions  of  after-school 
sucess  in  the  vocations  undertaken,  and  (b)  greater  ease  and  objec- 
tiveness  of  scoring  the  various  tests  in  reporting  the  results. 

The  scores  on  the  qualification  card  are  not  the  scores  received  on 
the  several  tests;  the  hand  sewing  scores  of  the  qualification  cards, 
for  instance,  represent  the  results  of  the  first  subjective  summation 
of  scores  in  the  four  abilities  of  hand  sewing,  "accuracy,  speed,  neat- 
ness, handling,"  in  making  a  simple  hem  handkerchief  and  a  child's 
cap;  the  pasting  scores  of  the  qualification  card  represent  the  first 
subjective  summation  of  a  series  of  scores  of  the  four  abilities  of 
pasting  "accuracy,  speed,  neatness,  handling"  in  doing  sample 
mounting  of  colored  cloth  triangles  upon  a  cardboard  backing  and 
making  a  paper  covered  pasteboard  box  with  cloth  reinforced 
corners. 

The  test  scores  of  qualification  cards  are  subdivided  into  com- 
mercial tests,  ten  in  number,  and  industrial  tests,  nine  in  number. 
To  evaluate  these,  a  celluloid  stencil  was  constructed,  on  which  each 
test  and  each  score  or  rating  on  a  given  test  was  arbitrarily  given  a 
numerical  value.  It  is  only  by  assigning  numerical  values  to  "high 
average"  position  of  check  mark  on  a  line  opposite  the  English  test, 
that  such  scores  can  be  effectively  dealt  with  statistically. 

The  commercial  tests  scores  were  all  reported  as  "good,  fair,"  and 
"poor,"  finer  differentiations  of  ability  being  secured  by  significance 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  79 

being  attached  to  the  position  of  the  check  mark,  indicating  the 
score  in  the  test,  upon  a  ruled  line  approximately  2.6  inches  in  length. 
On  the  celluloid  scoring  stencil,  this  length  was  subdivided  into  nine 
equal  parts,  numbered  from  I  to  9,  in  increasing  order  of  merit  of 
score  obtained.  The  position  of  the  check  mark  as  falling  in  one  of 
these  nine  vertical  columns  of  the  stencil  is  the  score  in  each  of  the 
commercial  tests,  the  variables  being  numbered  5-14,  inclusive. 
These  check  mark  estimates  were  subjectively  evaluated  and  a  com- 
mercial "stamp,"  or  recommendation  of  the  director,  placed  on  the 
card  as  variable  No.  15.  The  various  stamps  and  their  evaluation,  as 
well  as  the  similar  industrial  "stamps,"  are  explained  below.  The 
industrial  tests,  in  their  various  subdivisions,  had  their  scores 
reported  as  "good,  fair"  and  "poor,"  arbitrarily  given  numerical 
values  respectively  of  3,  2,  and  I,  in  variables  numbered  16  to  34, 
inclusive. 

The  several  tests,  briefly  described,  are  as  follows: 
I.    Commercial  Tests. 

Variable  5.     English.     Three  compositions  and  a  final  test  are  required  in  the 
course: 

A.  Composition:   Skilled  and  Unskilled  Labor. 

B.  Composition:  Vocations  for  Women. 

C.  Composition:   Effect  of  the  Introduction  of  Machinery. 

D.  Final  test. 

a.  Dictation :    Discourse  between  two  people. 

b.  Composition:   What  These  Courses  in  the   Extension  Classes  have 

Meant  to  Me. 
Time: 

Lectures,  preliminary  to  compositions,  30  minutes  each. 
Compositions,  30  minutes  each. 
Final  test,  60  minutes. 

Variable    6.   Arithmetic. 

Single  problems  in  arithmetical  operations. 

Variable    7.    Penmanship. 

Based  on  penmanship  on  written  work  of  compositions. 

Variable    8.    Switchboard. 

A  series  of  demonstration  performance  lessons  on  the  use  of  a  private  branch 
exchange  switchboard,  the  various  pupils  taking  turns  in  being,  "private 
branch  operator,"  "lady  in  a  residence,"  "desk  clerk,"  etc.,  being  rated  by  the 
teacher  in  each  capacity  in  turn. 

Variable    9.   Filing. 

A  series  of  three  lessons  with  tests  on  each. 


8o  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

A.  Alphabetical  filing.    Test  of  arranging  50  cards  in  alphabetical  order  and 

copying  the  order  on  paper. 

B.  Geographical  filing.     Test  on  same. 

C.  Telephone  Directory  and  its  use.  Test  of  using  directory  in  locating  desig- 

nated names. 

Variable  10.   Stenography. 

A  series  of  lessons,  beginning  with  the  single  strokes  and  leading  up  to  the  final 
construction  of  simple  words  and  sentences.  Ability  scored  on  the  basis  of 
reactions  to  simple  dictation  involving  beginning  principles  of  stenography. 

Variable  n.   Typewriting. 

A  series  of  five  lessons  leading  up  to  the  final  formation  of  simple  letter  groups, 
or  syllables,  by  the  touch  system.  Practice  sheets  are  preserved  and  sub- 
jectively scored  by  the  teacher. 

Variable  12.   General  Adaptability. 

A  subjective  judgment  of  presumable  general  intelligence. 

Variable  13.    Personality. 
A  subjective  judgment. 

Variable  14.   Appearance. 

A  subjective  judgment.    Stressing  neatness  rather  than  personal  beauty. 

Variable  15.   Commercial  Estimate,  or  "stamp." 

This  is  the  director's  subjective  summation  of  all  the  check  marks  of  the  above 
tests.  This  is  the  recommendation  of  action  to  the  principal  of  the  school  from 
which  the  pupil  comes.  A  series  of  rubber  stamps  are  used,  an  imprint  of  one 
of  which  is  affixed  to  each  card.  As  arbitrarily  evaluated,  after  comparison  of 
meanings  of  the  various  ratings  of  the  various  teachers  by  drawing  on  a  ten- 
inch  line  the  division  points  of  the  various  meanings,  the  stamps  were  given 
numerical  scores  ranging  in  ascending  order  from  I  to  7. 

II.    Industrial  Tests 

Variable  16.  Teacher's  subjective  evaluation  of  hand  sewing  ability,  based  on  the 
card  entries  of  the  four  following  sewing  variables;  accuracy,  speed,  neatness 
and  handling,  variables  17,  18,  19,  20.  For  the  97  persons  of  the  experiment 
this  correlates  with  the  sum  of  the  gross  scores  of  the  four  variables,  of  which  it 
is  a  subjective  summation,  to  the  extent  of  .662.  There  was  a  fair  spread  of  the 
summation  scores. 

Variable  21.  Teacher's  subjective  evaluation  of  power  machine  operating,  based 
on  the  card  entries  of  the  four  following  power  machine  sewing  variables; 
accuracy,  speed,  neatness,  and  handling,  variables  22,  23,  24,  25.  For  the  97 
this  correlates  with  the  sum  of  the  gross  scores  of  the  variables,  of  which  it  is  a 
subjective  summation,  to  the  extent  of  .881. 

Variable  26.  Teacher's  subjective  evaluation  of  pasting,  based  on  the  card  entries 
of  the  four  following  pasting  variables;  accuracy,  speed,  neatness,  handling, 
variables  27,  28,  29,  30.  For  the  97  this  correlates  with  the  sum  of  the  gross 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  81 

scores  of  the  four  variables,  of  which  it  is  a  subjective  summation,  to  the  extent 
of  .868. 

Variable  31.    Grasp  of  Directions. 

A  subjective  judgment,  presumably  "ability  to  imitate"  demonstrated  per- 
formance. 

Variable  32.    Persistence. 
A  subjective  judgment. 

Variable  33.    Interest. 
A  subjective  judgment. 

Variable  34.    Originality. 
A  subjective  judgment,  "designing"  ability  presumably  predominating. 

Variable  35.   Sewing  estimate,  or  "stamp." 

The  stamps  were  given  numerical  scores  in  ascending  order  of  merit  from 
o  to  4.  The  power  machine  and  hand  sewing  evaluations  of  variables  16  and 
21  are  here  subjectively  combined  in  the  one  stamp,  making  impossible  sep- 
arate evaluation  of  these  two  items. 

Variable  36.    Pasting  estimate  or  "stamp." 
The  stamps  were  given  numerical  scores  in  ascending  order  of  merit  from  o  to  4. 

The  above  descriptions  are  but  meager  and  inadequate  repre- 
sentations of  the  tests  used  and  the  numbers  of  ratings  made.  This 
research  is  devoted  to  the  evaluation  of  the  qualification  card  entries, 
and  not  to  the  original  ratings  from  which  these  are  made.  As  such, 
the  results  reported  logically  fall  into  two  headings : 

A.  Intercorrelations  of  various  additional  tests  administered  to 
97  of  one  such  section  of  pupils,  on  whom  qualification  card  records 
were  complete,  together  with  similar  intercorrelations  of  the  quali- 
fication card  data  and  test  scores. 

B.  Evaluation  of  the  qualification  card  test  scores  against  aver- 
age semester  school  marks  in  commercial  high  school  subjects  of  30 
pupils  who  had  passed  through  this  extension  school  previously,  and 
were  found  to  be  attending  commercial  high  school  at  the  time  of  the 
investigation. 

A .   Results  of  Intercorrelations  Based  on  97  Pupils 

With  the  aim  of  investigating  the  possibilities  of  standard  objec- 
tive tests  in  conjunction  with  the  subjective  performance  tests,  addi- 
tional verbal  and  non-verbal  intelligence  tests  were  given  to  one  of 
the  bi-weekly  classes  of  the  extension  department.  There  were  97 
girls  who  had  complete  test  records  in  all  tests. 


82  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

In  the  results  which  follow,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  reli- 
ability of  the  gross  scores  is  somewhat  greater  than  is  ordinarily  the 
case  with  subjective  judgments,  since  each  gross  score  of  the  qualifi- 
cation card  is  normally  the  result  of  a  subjective  summation  of 
several  personal  judgments,  made  in  some  cases  by  two  or  more 
teachers  independently. 

In  order  to  evaluate  the  qualification  card  variables  against  one 
another,  combinations  of  the  scores  of  the  variables  were  made  by 
adding  the  gross  scores  and  computing  the  intercor relations.  These 
intercorrelations  are  shown  in  Table  IV. 

Of  the  commercial  tests,  switchboard,  stenography  and  type- 
writing (8  +  10  +  n)  combined  have  the  highest  correlation  with 
the  director's  estimate  (15),  r  =  .676.  Next  in  value  in  predicting 
the  estimate  (15)  are  English  and  arithmetic  combined  (5  +6), 
r  =  .595;  next,  general  adaptability,  personality  and  appearance 
combined  (12  +  13  +  14)  >  r  =  -575;  and  finally  penmanship  and 
filing  (7  -f  9),  T  =  .506.  In  view  of  the  magnitude  of  these  correla- 
tions, the  average  of  which  is  .588,  it  would  seem  that  too  much  of 
personal  judgment  of  the  director  is  being  injected  into  the  final 
estimates,  over  and  beyond  what  the  tests  themselves  show.  The 
weighting  of  these  variables  in  determining  the  final  "stamp"  applied 
to  the  card  is  a  subjective  matter.  The  correlations  would  lead  us  to 
believe  that  much  might  be  gained  from  using  a  series  of  objective 
weights  in  determining  what  is  to  be  the  final  stamp. 

The  majority  of  the  industrial  tests,  as  combined,  correlate  nega- 
tively with  the  commercial  estimate.  The  average  of  the  nine  com- 
binations of  correlations  of  industrial  tests  of  the  table  with  the  com- 
mercial estimate  is  —  .003.  The  final  commercial  stamp  (15)  corre- 
lates with  sewing  estimate  to  the  extent  of  —  .118;  and  with  pasting 
to  the  extent  of  —  .008.  Taking  the  tests  at  their  face  value,  one 
would  conclude  that  commercial  ability  and  industrial  ability  in  sew- 
ing and  pasting  are  correlated  slightly  negatively.  Grasp  of  direc- 
tions, persistence,  interest  and  originality  in  industrial  work  (31  +32 
~t~  33  +  34)  combined  correlate  positively  with  commercial  estimate ; 
r  =  .306.  This  suggests  that  these  subjective  tests  of  character 
qualities  re  influenced  by  the  same  considerations  which  make  for  a 
correlation  of  .186  with  general  adaptability,  personality  and  appear- 
ance (12  +13  +  1 4)  of  the  commercial  tests,  and  a  positive  corre- 
lation with  all  other  commercial  tests.  These  four  subjective  judg- 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  83 

ments  could  well  be  discarded  for  a  non-verbal  intelligence  test,  for 
which  they  are  a  very  inferior  substitute. 

All  industrial  tests  intercorrelate  among  themselves  positively. 
The  average  of  nine  correlations  of  the  table  with  the  final  sewing 
stamp  gives  r  =  .483,  and  with  the  pasting  stamp,  r  =  .516. 

Combining  "accuracy,  speed,  neatness  and  handling"  by  adding 
the  scores,  gives  lower  correlations  with  the  final  industrial  stamp 
than  the  subjective  evaluation  of  these  items;  in  the  case  of  sewing 
evaluation  and  sewing  stamp,  .618  vs.  .920;  sewing  estimate  and 
pasting  stamp,  .543  vs.  .647;  power  machine  operating  and  pasting 
stamp,  .718  vs.  .797.  In  the  other  cases  the  combined  score  corre- 
lates higher  with  the  final  stamps;  power  machine  operating  and 
sewing  stamp  .474  for  the  estimate  vs.  .569  for  the  combined  score; 
pasting  evaluation  with  sewing  stamp,  .305  vs.  .308,  or  equal  so  far 
as  all  practical  considerations  are  concerned ;  and  pasting  evaluation 
with  pasting  stamp,  .374  vs.  .377,  again  equal  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses. Inasmuch  as  the  scores  in  hand  sewing  have  little  dispersion, 
it  seems  true  that  subjective  bias  has  entered  into  these  hand  sewing 
scores,  and  consequently  into  their  final  evaluation  and  is  reflected 
almost  perfectly  from  the  evaluation  in  the  sewing  stamp  applied. 
Hand  sewing  evaluation  and  sewing  stamp  correlate  to  the  extent  of 
.920.  Statistically,  the  difficulty  lies  in  not  making  use  in  the  final 
stamp  of  the  differentiation  already  secured  in  the  tests.  Judgments 
of  "accuracy,  speed,  neatness,  handling"  are  based  on  more  than 
one  judgment  and  so  have  some  reliability  in  themselves.  The 
evaluations  can  go  only  by  full  steps ;  the  summation  can  add  up  by 
partial  credits.  That  is,  the  evaluation  of  A's  ability  must  be  either 
I,  2,  or  3;  while  by  summation  it  may  be  any  score  from  4  to  12  in- 
clusive. The  correlations  afforded  by  the  evaluations  of  the  stamps 
are  such  as  to  prove  the  feasibility  of  using  the  sum  of  the  four. 

Alpha  (Form  6)  and  three  Thorndike  Non-Verbal  Intelligence 
Tests  (Forms:  I-A,  I-L,  II-K)  were  given  to  the  97  subjects.  The 
intercorrelations  are  shown  in  Table  V.  It  is  to  be  noted  here,  as  in 
the  case  of  all  correlations  based  on  these  97  subjects,  that  while  the 
correlations  apparently  are  low,  these  correlations  are  based  on  a 
very  limited  range  of  talent,  the  eighth  grade  of  school  to  which  all 
belonged.  Since  all  are  of  the  same  grade,  presumably  the  older 
pupils  are  the  less  intelligent;  this  is  brought  out  by  the  four  out  of 
five  negative  intercorrelations.  The  Toops-Pintner  revised  direc- 


84 


Trade  Tests  in  Education 


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Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise 


tions  test  was  also  given.  This  test  is  a  poor  measure  of  whatever 
abilities  are  measured  by  the  three  non-verbal  tests.  As  a  short, 
easily  administered,  and  perfectly  objective,  scorable-by-stencil  test 
of  intelligence,  the  test  has  promise;  its  correlation  with  Alpha  is 
higher  than  the  average  intercorrelations  of  the  three  non-verbal 
tests.  Of  the  three  non-verbal  tests,  Form  I-L,  which  is  most  diffi- 
cult of  the  three  forms,  has  the  highest  average  intercorrelation. 
This  seems  to  suggest  that  more  difficult  non-verbal  tests  might 
prove  to  be  of  more  value  than  the  present  ones. 

The  correlations  of  the  two  intelligence  tests  and  the  combined 
score  in  the  three  non-verbal  tests,  found  by  adding  together  the 
separate  gross  scores  in  the  three  non-verbal  tests,  are  shown  in 
Table  VI.  The  striking  contrast  between  the  value  of  Alpha  and  the 
value  of  non-verbal  tests  in  predicting  respectively  the  commercial 
test  scores  and  the  industrial  test  scores  is  shown  by  the  plus  sign 
which  indicates  which  of  the  two  "intelligence"  tests  is  the  better 
predicter  of  the  respective  test  scores.  If  we  say  that  the  Alpha  is 

TABLE  V 

INTERCORRELATION  OF  MEASURES  OF  INTELLIGENCE 
ALL  EIGHTH  GRADE  PUPILS.     N  =  97 

Intercorrelation  With: 


Variable 

A  Re 

Directions 

N.  V.- 
I-A 

N.  V.- 
I-L 

N.  V.- 
II-K 

Alpha 

A  verage 
with  other 
intelli- 
gence 
measures 

Age 

-.242 

—  .038 

.051 

—  .in 

-.276 

-.123 

Directions 

-.242 

—  .019 

.040 

•034 

•398 

.113 

N.  V.-I-A 

-.038 

—.019 

•473 

.287 

.227 

.242 

N.  V.-I-L 

.051 

.040 

•473 

•375 

•319 

.302 

N.  V.-II-K 

—.in 

•034 

.287 

.375 

.411 

.277 

Alpha 

-.276 

•398 

.227 

•319 

.411 

.339 

Variable  Average 

13-45 

15-65 

43-02 

39-45 

45-30 

65.80 

.... 

a 

.824 

3-395 

12.081 

9.258 

9.519 

14-322 

.... 

86 


Trade  Tests  in  Education 


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Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  87 

"typical"  of  commercial  test  scores  and  the  non-verbal  test  of  indus- 
trial test  scores,  and  if  into  the  subjective  evaluation  of  the  four 
"abilities"  in  each  of  the  three  industrial  tests  of  hand  sewing,  power 
machine  operating,  and  pasting  there  enter  largely  those  personal 
subjective  qualities  otherwise  designated  as  "personality,"  "general 
adaptability,"  etc, — then  we  should  expect  to  find  the  following: 

1.  Alpha  correlating  higher  with  the  subjective  evaluation  of  the 
four  abilities  than  the  objective  arithmetical  summation  of  these 
four  abilities.     This  it  does  (Table  VI)  in  two  cases  out  of  three,  the 
exception  being  in  power  machine  operating,  in  which  it  may  be 
noted,  the  test  product  is  more  easily  scored  objectively  than  the 
hand  sewing  or  pasting  products. 

2.  Non-verbal  tests  correlating  higher  with  the  objective  arith- 
metical summation  of  the  four  abilities  than  with  the  subjective 
evaluation.  This  the  combined  non-verbal  score  does  in  all  three  cases. 

The  argument  thus  seems  strongly  in  favor  of  scoring  the  indus- 
trial tests  solely  on  the  basis  of  the  objective  tests,  and  not  allowing 
for  a  subjective  judgment  "over  and  beyond"  what  the  objective 
arithmetical  summation  of  the  tests  alone  would  give. 

B.    Follow-up  of  Students  who  Entered  Commercial  High  School 

From  the  records  of  the  extension  school  was  found  a  list  of  134 
students  who  had  signified  their  intention  of  entering  the  commercial 
course  in  Washington  Irving  High  School.  From  this  list  only  thirty- 
nine  records  could  be  located  at  the  high  school  (29.1  per  cent).  This 
fact  is  mentioned  as  showing  one  of  the  difficulties  encountered  in 
checking  up  the  value  of  any  selection  methods.  Undoubtedly  more 
than  thirty-nine  students  had  entered  high  school,  but  had  dropped 
out,  since  there  were  a  few  of  the  persons  who  were  at  the  time  in 
their  fifth  semester  at  the  high  school.  Our  records  therefore  are 
lacking  in  one  important  element, — knowing  the  test  record  and  high 
school  record  of  previous  failures.  From  the  thirty-nine  records, 
there  were  available  only  the  thirty  records  sufficiently  complete  in 
all  respects  to  be  used  in  partial  correlation. 

The  thirty-nine  students  had  been  in  school  for  the  following 
lengths  of  time:  I  semester,  o;  2  semesters,  2 ;  3  semesters,  4;  4  sem- 
esters, 31 ;  5  semesters,  2;  total,  39. 

The  average  per  semester  percentage  school  marks  were  com- 
puted in  the  following  subjects:  English;  mathematics;  drawing; 
stenography;  typing;  bookeeping. 


88  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

A  few  unmentioned  electives  were  disregarded  in  obtaining  the 
average  per  semester  percentage  school  mark  in  all  subjects.  This 
average  school  mark  is  inaccurate  through  the  rating  of  different  per- 
sons by  different  teachers,  through  changes  in  the  standard  of  grading 
from  year  to  year,  through  unequal  lengths  of  time  in  school  and  con- 
sequent different  numbers  of  semester  courses,  together  with  all  the 
errors  inherent  in  a  percentage  system  of  grading.  It  is  a  rough  crite- 
rion of  ability  to  do  commercial  high  school  work,  but  is  the  best  one 
may  obtain  without  excessive  statistical  labor  spent  on  only  a  few 
cases.  Criteria  for  evaluating  test  methods  are  generally  subject  to 
such  difficulties. 

A  check  on  the  value  of  the  extension  school  tests  in  predicting  the 
probable  commercial  high  school  success  of  these  pupils  is  the  corre- 
lation between  their  extension  school  tests  and  commercial  high 
school  grades  in  the  same  or  similar  work.  Table  VII  shows  the 
results. 

It  is  seen  that  the  typing  and  stenography  tests,  approaches  to  an 
objective  trade  test  method,  are  fair  predicters  of  high  school  marks 
in  those  subjects.  Extension  department  arithmetic  tests  are  fair 
predicters  of  bookkeeping  marks,  but  not  of  the  marks  in  algebra, 


TABLE  VII 

TABLE  OF  CORRELATIONS  OF  EXTENSION  SCHOOL  TESTS  WITH  SAME  OR  SIMILAR 
SCHOOL  COURSE  AVERAGE  PER  SEMESTER  HIGH  SCHOOL  MARKS 


Correlation  of 

Number  of  Cases 

r  = 

School    Mark    in    Typing    with    Typewriting 

430 

Test  Score 

24 

School   Mark  in  English  with   English  Test 

Score 

30 

.205 

School  Mark  in  Stenography  with  Stenography 

Test  Score 

23 

452 

School  Mark  in  Mathematics  (Algebra)  with 

+.135 

Arithmetic  Test  Score 

H 

School  Mark  in  Bookkeeping  with  Arithmetic 

.478 

Test  Score 

26 

Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise 


a  more  abstract  mathematical  subject.  The  English  test  is  a  poor 
predicter  of  high  school  marks  in  English.  Probably  all  these  corre- 
lations, seemingly  not  very  high,  would  be  higher  if  the  high  school 
group  were  not  of  so  restricted  arrange.  Furthermore,  the  group 
studied  consisted  of  only  the  "survivors"  and  not  the  "entrants." 
Again,  the  extension  school  estimate  must  be  one  which  will  predict 
the  average  success  in  a  subject  for  as  long  period  of  time  as  five 
semesters  in  high  school.  The  results  reported  above  in  the  case 
of  the  English  test,  a  composition  test,  which  in  common  with  most 
composition  tests  probably  has  a  high  P.  E.  of  the  individual  score, 
suggests  the  need  for  a  revision  of  this  test. 

The  relationships  of  the  high  school  commercial  course  marks  to 
the  various  "stamps"  in  commercial  tests,  sewing  tests,  pasting  tests, 
are  shown  in  Table  VIII.  Commercial  "stamps"  correlate  positively 
to  the  extent  of  403  with  commercial  high  school  grades.  It  is  this 
figure  which  we  hope  later  to  raise  by  the  partial  correlation  weight- 
ing of  the  various  commercial  tests.  High  school  marks  correlate 
positively  with  sewing  "stamps"  to  the  extent  of  .242 ;  and  with  past- 
ing "stamps"  to  the  extent  of  .063.  There  is  evidently  little  relation- 
ship between  ability  to  get  along  well  in  a  commercial  high  school, 
as  measured,  and  ability  in  sewing  or  pasting,  as  measured  by  the 

TABLE  VIII 

INTERCORRELATIONS  OF  "STAMPS"  IN  COMMERCIAL,  SEWING  AND  PASTING  TESTS 
WITH  AVERAGE  PER  SEMESTER  HIGH  SCHOOL  MARKS.    N=3o 


Correlation  with  Variable: 

T/"       "    A7 

i 

2 

3 

4 

i 

I.OOO 

403 

.242 

.063 

2 

•403 

I.OOO 

.346 

.336 

3 

.242 

•346 

I.OOO 

•597 

4 

.063 

.336 

•597 

I.OOO 

0- 

6.320 

1-585 

.829 

•539 

Average 

67.20 

3-47 

2.67 

3.10 

Variable  i — Average  per  semester  school  mark  in  commercial  high  school  courses. 
Variable  2 — Estimate  "stamp"  of  commercial  ability. 
Variable  3 — Estimate  "stamp"  of  sewing  ability. 
Variable  4 — Estimate  "stamp"  of  pasting  ability. 


9O  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

extension  school  "stamps."  The  fact  that,  where  we  have  objective 
evidence  in  regard  to  the  pupils'  commercial  abilities,  the  correla- 
tions of  commercial  success  with  the  industrial  stamps  are  positive  in 
every  case,  would  lead  us  to  doubt  whether  the  low  negative  correla- 
tions of  Table  IV  really  indicate  a  fundamental  negative  relation- 
ship between  "commercial  ability"  and  "industrial  ability,"  or  are  only 
the  result  of  the  teachers'  possible  adherence  to  a  "type"  philosophy 
of  tests,  —  the  ever  popular  belief  that  a  person  "preeminently"  fitted 
to  be  a  commercial  worker  will  not  be  a  good  industrial  worker  and 
vice  versa.  Such  a  chance  for  bias,  not  possible  with  objective  trade 
tests,  may  impose  a  very  real  obstacle  to  the  success  of  the  subjective 
method  of  judging  the  results  of  objective  tests. 

A  previous  tabulation  of  the  commercial  "stamps"  and  subjective 
composite  of  the  sewing  and  pasting  "stamps,"  called  "industrial  test 
rating"  in  the  case  of  346  successively  accumulating  qualification 
cards,  yielded  a  positive  correlation  between  commercial  "stamps" 
and  industrial  "stamps"  of  .071.  Commercial  ability,  as  measured  by 
these  subjective  stamp  evaluations  of  commercial  tests,  is  related  but 
slightly  to  industrial  ability  similarly  determined. 

The  intercorrelations  of  the  various  commercial  tests,  the  corre- 
lations with  average  per  semester  school  marks,  the  average  scores 
and  standard  deviations  are  shown  in  Table  IX. 

These  tests,  excluding  the  estimate,  variable  15,  were  evaluated 
by  partial  correlation  yielding  the  formulae  : 

In  terms  of  deviations  : 

English  Arithmetic  Penmanship         Switchboard 

*A  *5  XG  X7  ^       #8 

-£    =    -.015—^      +.173     -J         +.I84-  +.036- 

(8)  <7A  05  0-6  0-7  08 

General 
Filing  Stenography        Typewriting  Adaptability 

Xg  XIQ  _         #n  #12 

-f.IIO—  --f.I20  —  -•    +  .280  —  —  +.137  - 


Personality  Appearance 

-.008  —  -.047  —  The  total  correlation  of  the 


composite  and  criterion  is,  nc    =  .712. 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise 


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92  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

Or,  in  terms  of  gross  scores : 
(9)        *A  =    '-  .040  X6  +  .508  XQ  +  .509  X7  +  .102  XB 

+   -350  Xg   +   .307  XIQ  +  .943  Xn  +  .424  XVi 
-    .034  XU   -   .161  XH  +  53-238. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  state  the  value  of  the  several  tests. 

We  shall  do  this  by  variable  numbers. 

Variable  5.  English  Test.  As  shown  by  the  very  low  negative  weighting,  the 
test  is,  for  these  follow-up  cases,  worse  than  useless  as  now  scored.  As  pre- 
viously shown,  the  English  test  is  of  almost  no  value  in  predicting  high  school 
marks  in  English.  A  composition  test  has  too  high  a  probable  error  of  the  indi- 
vidual score  to  be  of  much  value  as  an  English  test.  A  Trabue  Completion-Test 
Language  Scale,  requiring  not  more  than  ten  minutes,  would  probably  give  much 
better  measure  of  school  English  marks,  and  besides  is  a  good  intelligence  test. 

Variable  6.  Arithmetic  Test.  A  highly  valuable  test,  exceeded  in  value  only  by 
the  penmanship  and  typewriting  tests. 

Variable    7.    Penmanship  Test.   Exceeded  in  value  only  by  the  typewriting  test. 

Variable  8.  Switchboard  Test.  Of  little  value  in  predicting  high  school  marks  in 
a  commercial  course.  The  test  may  prove  to  be  of  value  as  a  vocational  test  for 
switchboard  operators.  For  predicting  high  school  commercial  course  success, 
the  time  spent  on  this  test  could  well  be  devoted  to  other  tests  of  promise,  a 
good  intelligence  test,  for  instance. 

Variable    9.   Filing  Test.  A  desirable  test,  exceeded  in  value  only  by  five  others. 

Variable  10.  Stenography  Test.  A  desirable  test,  about  on  a  par  with  the  filing 
test. 

Variable  1 1.  Typewriting  Test.  The  most  valuable  test  of  the  group.  The  spread 
of  scores  (standard  deviation)  is  less  than  in  any  of  the  other  objective  tests:  if 
a  greater  spread  of  scores  could  be  obtained,  the  test  might  prove  to  be  an  even 
better  test  than  at  present. 

Variable  12.  General  Adaptability.  This  is  a  subjective  judgment  test  and  is 
about  on  a  par  with  the  filing  and  stenography  tests.  The  trait  probably  cor- 
responds most  nearly  to  general  intelligence  of  any  of  the  personal  traits  judged. 
In  spite  of  its  being  a  subjective  test,  it  receives  a  fair  positive  weighting,  suffi- 
cient to  suggest  greater  possibilities  from  an  objective  intelligence  test.  The 
administrative  demands  upon  such  an  intelligence  test  are:  (i)  Short  ad  minis- 
tration time.  (2)  Short  scoring  time.  (3)  High  reliability.  Some  form  of  omnibus 
intelligence  test  will  meet  these  requirements.  If  the  present  English  test 
should  be  abandoned  in  favor  of  a  Trabue  Language  Scale,  there  would  be  less 
need  of  such  an  intelligence  test.  Again,  the  time  now  spent  on  the  switchboard 
test  would  give  more  than  ample  time  for  such  an  intelligence  test,  if  the  switch- 
board test  were  abandoned. 

Variable  13.  Personality.  This  is  another  personal  judgment  test.  It  receives  a 
negative  weighting,  which  might  suggest  that  "personality"  is  "bad  personality" 
that  remains  after  a  pupil  has  been  judged  for  intelligence.  The  time  taken  for 
this  useless  judgment  might  well  be  spent  in  scoring  a  good  intelligence  test. 
The  spread  of  scores  is  least  of  all  the  objective  and  subjective  tests. 


Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  93 

Variable  14.  Appearance.  Although  the  spread  of  scores  is  higher  than  the  pre- 
vious test,  it  would  seem  that  "personal  appearance"  is  of  no  concern  in  com- 
mercial high  school  success!  One  might,  of  course,  argue  that  the  trait  determines 
to  some  extent  one's  success  after  leaving  school  and  entering  business.  This 
seems  doubtful,  if  one  may  judge  from  popular  opinion,  for  the  homely  girl  is 
often  preferred  in  many  clerical  positions  as  it  is  commonly  believed  that  "her 
chances  of  being  married  are  less  than  those  of  a  pretty  girl."  At  any  rate,  it 
seems  doubtful  whether  a  public  school  should  ever  bar  anyone  from  taking  a 
commercial  course  on  such  grounds. 

The  results  of  this  investigation  are  convincing  to  the  effect  that 
objective  tests  of  the  type  used  can  be  made  a  very  worthwhile  part 
of  the  educational  machinery  involved  in  preparing  children  for  life's 
struggles.  The  results  are  promising  enough  to  justify  the  army 
trade  test  procedure  being  adopted  in  the  case  of  one  or  two  hundred 
high  school  freshman  students  whose  abilities  will  become  known.  It 
would  be  but  a  simple  matter  to  have  the  same  tests,  as  are  now 
administered  to  the  eighth  grade  girls,  administered  to  a  class  of  high 
school  students  who  would  attend  the  extension  school  for  two  weeks 
for  the  purpose.  During  this  time,  an  additional  number  of  intelli- 
gence tests,  reading  tests  and  other  tests  of  promise  should  be  tried. 
By  standardization  of  the  tests  on  large  numbers  of  pupils  who  will 
be  certain  to  attend  the  high  school,  we  will  include  the  "to-be-fail- 
ures" in  our  group  as  well  as  the  "survivors."  This  procedure  con- 
forms to  the  procedure  of  trade  tests,  adapted  to  vocational  guid- 
ance. It  should  be  evident  that  testing  students  who  have  already 
had  extended  high  school  training  in  stenography,  typewriting,  and 
the  like,  may  not  be  expected  a  priori  to  yield  the  desired  norms; 
what  is  needed  is  to  test  a  high  school  freshman  class  upon  entering 
the  high  school  or  soon  thereafter.  One  should  also  not  fail  to  make 
the  distinction  that  not  all  persons  in  grade  school  who  made  a  50 
percentile  score  in  the  distribution  of  extension  department  test 
scores)  will  attain  that  degree  of  success  in  high  school;  rather,  if 
standardized  in  the  manner  suggested,  "of  those  people  interested 
enough  to  enter  high  school,  the  tests  so  standardized  will  predict 
such-and-such  success,  with  a  given  correlation  X"  Thus,  interest, 
logically  kindled  through  the  talks  given  the  extension  students  by 
the  teachers,  may  lead  the  child  to  make  the  decision  to  go  to  high 
school,  after  which  the  tests  will  reveal  with  a  rather  high  degree  of 
accuracy  his  probable  success  in  the  high  school  course.  A  correla- 
tion of  .71  between  tests  and  high  school  success  is  undoubtedly 


94 


Trade  Tests  in  Education 


TABLE  X 

ORIGINAL  QUALIFICATION  CARD  AND  FOLLOW-UP  DATA  OF 
HIGH  SCHOOL  COMMERCIAL  STUDENTS 


Score  in  Tests: 

41 

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c 

$ 

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8 

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8 

8 

8 

5 

2 

83 

8 

8 

8 

S 

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9 

8 

8 

8 

5 

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3 

68 

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2 

8 

2 

8 

9 

2 

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5 

4 

58 

8 

2 

2 

8 

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2 

2 

2 

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8 

2 

5 

79 

8 

8 

8 

5 

8 

8 

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8 

8 

8 

6 

6 

73 

8 

5 

5 

8 

8 

2 

5 

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8 

8 

5 

7 

65 

8 

5 

5 

2 

2 

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8 

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8 

8 

5 

8 

66 

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2 

5 

5 

8 

2 

2 

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8 

2 

9 

67 

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8 

8 

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5 

5 

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2 

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10 

72 

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5 

8 

8 

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5 

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5 

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2 

ii 

74 

2 

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8 

2 

8 

5 

S 

8 

S 

5 

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12 

66 

8 

S 

8 

5 

5 

2 

2 

S 

5 

5 

2 

13 

70 

2 

S 

8 

S 

8 

S 

5 

S 

8 

8 

5 

14 

62 

8 

S 

2 

5 

5 

5 

S 

5 

8 

8 

S 

IS 

64 

S 

2 

8 

i 

8 

S 

2 

2 

8 

5 

2 

16 

62 

S 

8 

5 

S 

8 

5 

2 

2 

5 

5 

2 

17 

58 

5 

2 

S 

2 

8 

2 

2 

2 

S 

2 

2 

18 

64 

8 

2 

2 

S 

8 

2 

S 

S 

8 

8 

3 

19 

70 

5 

5 

5 

2 

8 

8 

5 

8 

S 

5 

S 

20 

65 

5 

S 

S 

S 

5 

8 

5 

S 

8 

8 

5 

21 

S3 

S 

S 

S 

5 

5 

2 

5 

S 

8 

5 

2 

22 

66 

2 

2 

8 

2 

2 

2 

5 

S 

5 

5 

2 

23 

76 

S 

8 

5 

S 

8 

2 

S 

S 

S 

8 

2 

24 

73 

8 

2 

S 

8 

S 

5 

8 

2 

8 

8 

S 

25 

67 

2 

8 

2 

2 

2 

5 

2 

5 

S 

5 

2 

26 

58 

8 

S 

2 

5 

8 

2 

2 

2 

S 

8 

I 

27 

65 

8 

5 

8 

8 

S 

8 

5 

S 

8 

8 

S 

28 

65 

5 

2 

S 

S 

S 

8 

2 

2 

8 

S 

4 

29 

68 

2 

2 

2 

S 

8 

2 

S 

2 

S 

5 

2 

30 

67 

8 

S 

8 

2 

S 

S 

5 

8 

8 

8 

S 

Average 

67.20 

S.6o 

4.60 

S-70 

4-77 

6.20 

4-77 

4-30 

4.80 

6.70 

6.30 

3-47 

a 

6.319 

2-375 

2.154 

2.282 

2.232 

1.990 

2.474 

1.847 

2.040 

1.487 

1.847 

.586 

Tests  of  Trade  Capacity  or  Promise  95 

much  better  than  a  consensus  j  udgment  of  many  interviewers  with- 
out tests  would  be.  Proper  additional  selection  of  promising  objec- 
tive tests  may  better  this  figure  considerably. 

One  should  consider  the  possibility  of  rating  pupils  by  their  suc- 
cess in  industry.  This  is  impossible  at  present.  The  most  that  can 
be  expected  of  such  a  vocational  guidance  department  is  to  make  a 
good  prediction  of  probable  high  school  success. 

Table  X  gives,  for  reference,  the  original  data  used  in  calculating 
the  correlations  of  Table  IX  involving  the  thirty  commercial  high 
school  students. 


CHAPTER  IV 

GENERAL  CONSIDERATIONS  IN  TESTING  AND  TRAIN- 
ING FOR  PROFICIENCY  AND  PROMISE 
IN  THE  TRADES 

Some  of  the  observations  made  on  the  trades,  on  tradesmen  and 
on  trade  practices,  during  the  assembly  and  standardization  of 
ninety  army  oral  trade  tests  may  be  of  value  to  anyone  who  would 
compare  army  methods  of  testing  trade  proficiency  with  school 
methods.  The  army  tests  were  standardized  on  men  in  industry  so 
that  the  following  remarks  apply  to  men  in  industry  and  not  to 
soldiers. 

Vocational  schools  may  not  have  been  "successful"  in  the  past 
owing  to  the  fact  that  they  were  not,  in  spite  of  their  claims,  aiming 
to  train  workers  of  the  kind  which  they  claimed  to  be  training.  The 
vocational  schools  have  claimed  to  be  training  tradesmen;  they 
really  were  attempting  to  train  foremen.  Industry  has  been  looking 
to  the  trade  schools  for  tradesmen,  and  necessarily  has  been  disap- 
pointed in  some  cases. 

A  tradesman's  training  in  industry  is  intellectually  narrow  in 
comparison  with  the  training  which  the  average  vocational  school 
would  give  him.  We  have  already  mentioned  the  specialization  which 
is  entering  practically  all  industries  and  all  trades.  Trades  are  being 
split  up  into  jobs,  and  jobs  into  operations,  in  order  that  inexperi- 
enced and  unintelligent  persons  can  quickly  become  competent  and 
productive,  and  in  order  to  obtain  the  profit  accruing  to  the  increased 
production  made  practicable  by  a  person's  being  allowed  to  become 
highly  skilled  in  one  simple  operation.  No  longer  does  the  typical 
tradesman  have  to  do  much  figuring  for  himself.  He  is  "sent  out  on 
a  job,"  the  standard  time  for  doing  which  has  often  been  figured  out 
in  advance.  On  the  job,  a  foreman  directs  his  work  at  every  step.  If 
his  tools  get  dull,  he  hands  them  in  many  cases  to  a  toolgrinder;  if 
his  belts  break,  he  calls  the  millwright  whose  sole  business  it  is  to 
keep  the  machinery  running;  if  his  work  is  not  turning  out  properly, 
he  may  call  the  toolsetter ;  and  finally,  an  inspector  tests  his  products. 

In  consequence  of  this  tendency  to  specialization,  in  but  few  of 


Testing  and  Training  for  Proficiency  97 

the  trades  are  there  many  pertinent  items  about  which  trade  test 
questions  may  be  formed.  Even  in  the  highly  skilled  mechanical  field 
of  the  toolmaker,  piece-work  wages  are  being  given  to  some  workers. 

Again,  we  have  mentioned  the  use  of  charts,  tables,  and  mechan- 
ical devices  used  in  industry  to  eliminate  arithmetical  calculations 
on  the  part  of  the  worker.  The  typical  workman  is  disdainful  of 
studying  books.  Along  with  this  goes  a  lack  of  realization  of  just 
how  dependent  he  really  is  upon  the  directions  of  others  and  upon 
such  book-made  aids  to  trade  proficiency.  As  a  result  of  this  atti- 
tude, perhaps,  he  reads  trade  magazines  but  occasionally.  These 
remarks  do  not  apply  to  the  foreman,  who  is  not  the  typical,  or  jour- 
neyman, tradesman.  Having  but  little  responsibility  for  the  job, 
once  his  toolchest  is  locked  up,  the  average  journeyman's  interest 
in  trade  matters  largely  ceases  at  five  P.  M.  on  week  days  and  at 
twelve  o'clock  on  Saturdays. 

But  few  tradesmen  study  books  on  their  trades  after  hours. 
Wherever,  in  army  standardization  of  oral  trade  tests,  a  boy  was 
found  who  was  pursuing  a  correspondence  course  in  his  trade,  he 
generally  made  a  higher  trade  test  score  than  other  boys  of  the  same 
length  of  experience  but  without  the  correspondence  school  course. 
The  general  consensus  of  opinion  of  foremen  in  such  cases  was  to  the 
effect  that  such  boys  were  of  more  value  on  the  job  than  boys  who 
did  not  have  the  "ambition"  to  take  such  courses.  Boys  who  attend 
night  school  seem  generally  superior  to  boys  who  do  not,  but  less 
markedly  so  than  the  boys  who  take  correspondence  school  courses. 
Possibly  one  may  correctly  look  upon  correspondence  school  adver- 
tisements as  an  excellent  sieve  for  picking  out  these  boys  who  have 
"enough  ambition  to  save  up  X  dollars  for  self-improvement,"  where- 
as the  night  school  appeals  to  a  lesser  ability,  "enough  ambition  to 
go  to  a  free  school  for  self-improvement." 

The  average  journeyman,  and  the  expert  to  a  lesser  degree,  is  lim- 
ited in  the  difficulty  of  trade  questions  which  he  is  able  to  answer.  It 
has  been  found,  for  instance,  that  "technical"  questions,  of  the  type 
which  one  might  propound  to  a  superintendent  of  a  machine  shop  or 
to  a  mechanical  engineer,  were  seldom  retained  for  the  final  examina- 
tion set  in  the  army  oral  questions ;  they  were  usually  discarded  be- 
cause there  were  so  few  passes  on  a  question  as  to  make  it  almost 
worthless  in  being  able  to  differentiate  between  different  classes  of 
trade  ability.  As  a  striking  example,  we  might  cite  the  case  of  some 


98  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

forty  or  fifty  millwrights,  journeymen  and  experts,  to  whom  three 
such  "difficult"  questions  were  administered.  A  millwright  is  in  charge 
of  setting  up  machinery  in  a  factory  and  keeping  the  belts,  shafts,  etc., 
in  constant  repair.  One  of  the  easiest  of  the  three  questions  was : 
"If  a  drive  pulley,  24  inches  in  diameter,  is  running  at  200  revolutions 
per  minute,  how  many  revolutions  per  minute  will  an  8-inch  pulley 
revolve,  which  is  belted  to  it?"  Only  one  journeyman  and  five  experts 
were  able  to  answer  the  question  correctly.  Many  of  them  would  not 
even  attempt  it.  The  question,  it  must  be  observed,  is  an  oral  ques- 
tion and  some  intelligence  is  needed  to  keep  all  the  factors  in  mind 
at  one  time ;  it  is  not  certain  that  the  same  results  would  be  secured 
from  using  a  blue-print  of  the  same  situation  and  asking  the  ques- 
tion with  reference  to  the  blue-print.  The  question  was  repeated  in 
its  entirety,  as  often  as  required  by  the  tradesmen,  and  yet  many  of 
them  seemed  unable  to  comprehend  the  situation  clearly  enough 
even  to  attempt  to  answer  it. 

Oral  trade  test  questions  must,  for  tradesmen  in  the  trade,  be 
limited  to  "practical  shop  kinks  and  everyday  knowledge."  In  few 
trades  are  there  to  be  found  as  many  as  seventy-five  questions,  of 
graded  difficulty  as  is  necessary,  which  will  fulfill  all  the  require- 
ments of  standardization  questions ;  and  of  these,  many  will  be  dis- 
carded in  the  standardization  process  if  rating  tests  are  being  made. 

The  majority  of  questions  must  not  be  technical  questions,  and  on 
the  other  hand  must  be  such  questions  as  will  sample  the  daily  habits 
of  the  workman.  For  "difficult"  questions  one  must  search  for  the 
type  of  question  ordinarily  regarded  as  "trade  secrets."  These  trade 
secrets,  when  analyzed,  prove  in  most  cases  to  be  merely  principles 
of  physics,  chemistry,  general  science,  or  measurement,  such  as  any 
high  school  senior  should  know.  Such,  for  example,  is  the  "rule"  that 
"to  get  the  circumference  of  an  iron  ring  you  multiply  the  diameter 
,  by  3  I  /y."  It  seems  at  least  plausible  that  the  high  repute  for  "skill 
and  accuracy"  generally  conceded  the  general  machinist,  or  "mechan- 
ic," is  due  to  a  misjudgment  of  the  public  as  to  the  difficulties  in- 
volved in  measuring  to  the  one-thousandth  part  of  an  inch.  Using 
the  mechanical  measuring  equipment  which  is  available  in  any 
machine  shop,  any  boy  of  the  intelligence  level  of  a  high  school 
graduate  should  be  able  to  learn  to  measure  to  that  degree  of  accu- 
racy in  about  fifteen  minutes.  Removing  one  thousandth  of  an  inch 
of  stock  from  a  piece  of  iron  being  turned  in  a  lathe  is  an  even 


Testing  and  Training  for  Proficiency  99 

simpler  process,  with  fewer  chances  for  error.  "Expert"  workman- 
ship, such  as  is  required  on  but  few  of  the  production  jobs  of  indus- 
try, means  ability  to  measure  to  the  ten-thousandth  part  of  an  inch. 
For  a  nominal  sum  one  may  now  buy  sets  of  "size"  blocks,  turned 
out  in  quantitites,  which  are  "guaranteed  not  to  vary  over  one  hun- 
dred-thousandth part  of  an  inch  from  the  stated  dimension."  Con- 
fronted by  such  statements  in  the  papers,  the  general  public  is  in- 
clined to  overestimate  the  amount  of  skill,  knowledge,  and  "trade 
secrets"  possessed  by  the  typical  journeyman. 

Consistent  with  the  overestimation  of  trade  skill  possessed  by 
the  typical  journeyman,  the  general  public  has  likewise  been  inclined 
to  overestimate  or  misplace  the  emphasis  which  should  be  placed 
upon  intelligence  in  the  acquisition  of  trade  proficiency.  A  chart,  en- 
titled "Occupational  Intelligence  Standards"  published  by  the  Sur- 
geon General's  Office,  in  a  pamphlet,  "Army  Mental  Tests,"  clearly 
illustrates  this  fact.  The  chart  shows  the  range  in  intelligence  cov- 
ered by  the  middle  50  per  cent  of  each  of  the  trades  indicated.  Only 
a  very  few  workmen,  such  as  laborers,  have  an  average  intelligence 
very  decidedly  below  the  average  intelligence  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion; in  perhaps  three  fourths  of  the  trades  of  modern  industry, 
"average"  intelligence  is  quite  capable  of  doing  work  in  the  manner 
in  which  it  is  now  done;  in  only  a  very  few  occupations,  such  as  the 
clerical  vocations  and  the  professions,  is  an  unusually  high  average 
amount  of  intelligence  necessary  for  competency  in  the  trade.  If  one 
talks  to  a  foreman  who  is  a  leader  in  his  trade,  he  is  rather  sure  to 
state  the  fact  that  an  unusually  high  degree  of  intelligence  is  de- 
manded in  order  to  be  a  satisfactory  worker  in  his  trade.  The  man 
prides  himself  on  the  fact  that  his  trade  is  a  very  difficult  one  to 
learn,  requiring  years  of  patience  and  effort  in  order  to  become  a  very 
skilled  worker.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  no  such  condition  prevails  in  at 
least  three  fourths  of  the  occupations  available  to  boys  entering 
industry.  Such  men  are  prone  to  overrate  the  ability  required  in  the 
present  day  to  learn  the  trade  which  they  may  have  learned  them- 
selves only  by  dint  of  many  "hard  knocks."  Much  of  the  trade 
information  which  the  tradesman  of  thirty  years  ago  learned  only 
through  experience  can  now  be  acquired  by  a  few  minutes  search  in 
standard  reference  books  on  the  trade. 

Informal  tests  of  tradesmen's  ability  to  recall  the  questions  asked, 
performed  immediately  after  an  examination  was  finished,  have  dis- 


ioo  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

closed  the  fact  that  few  but  the  very  best  and  most  intelligent  trades- 
men can  remember  even  half  a  dozen  questions  an  hour  later.  The 
examination  should  proceed  with  dispatch  from  one  question  to 
another,  thus  giving  the  subject  but  little  time  to  consider  each 
question  and  thus  fix  it  in  his  mind  for  later  recall. 

Questions  involving  complicated  mental  arithmetic  are  generally 
beyond  the  ability  of  even  the  better  tradesmen.  Questions  involv- 
ing the  use  of  fractions  are  generally  useless  in  oral  trade  tests. 
Mental  computation,  more  elaborate  than  simple  addition  of  easy 
numbers  is  generally  too  difficult  for  a  tradesman  of  lower  standing 
than  a  "foreman.  Questions  involving  many  limiting  conditions,  or 
clauses,  are  unsatisfactory,  owing  to  the  inability  of  the  tradesman 
mentally  to  grasp  so  complicated  a  situation.  By  conditions,  we 
mean  questions  similar  to  the  following:  "(i)  If  you  were  filing  brass, 
(2)  on  a  speed  lathe,  (3)  using  a  leather  belt,  (4)  the  spindle  running 

at  a  speed  of  1500  revolutions  per  minute,  (5)  what ?" 

As  a  practical  resulting  principle  for  trade  test  formulation,  a  ques- 
tion should  not  include  many  conditions  if  it  is  to  be  satisfactory. 
Essential  elements  of  knowledge  may  generally  be  found  in  such 
questions,  and  the  question  may  then  be  split  up  into  a  number  of 
simpler  questions.  For  the  same  reason,  those  questions  which  con- 
tain but  few  words  are  the  surer  of  being  correctly  comprehended  by 
the  workman.  If  possible,  oral  questions  should  be  limited  to  less 
than  twenty-five  words  in  length,  and  the  shorter  the  better.  Short 
questions  have  the  additional  value  of  being  quickly  administered. 
If  one  were  to  use  twenty  questions  of  twenty-five  words  each,  or 
forty  questions  of  ten  words  each  in  approximately  the  same  exam- 
ination time  the  latter  procedure  is  much  more  likely  to  give  a  selec- 
tion of  tradesmen  in  the  correct  order  of  their  abilities.  Language 
ability  seems  more  necessary  for  a  foreman  than  for  an  average 
journeyman ;  consequently,  the  longer,  more  involved  questions  will 
be  a  better  measure  of  foremanship  than  journeymanship  ability. 
The  general  education  possessed  by  tradesmen  is  such  as  to  make  one 
doubtful  as  to  whether  success  is  due  to  such  education,  or  to  intel- 
ligence and  other  qualities  of  character. 

THE  EDUCATION  OF  TRADESMEN 

The  belief  has  been  fairly  common  that  the  tradesman  is  an 
"educated"  man,  and  the  laborer  an  "uneducated"  man.  A  tabula- 


Testing  and  Training  for  Proficiency  101 

tion,  by  trades,  of  the  number  of  school  grades  completed  by  924 
tradesmen  distributed  among  thirty  trades  in  the  city  of  Pittsburgh 
shows  that: 

1.  The  median  grade  at  which  the  various  groups  of  tradesmen 
left  school  does  not  vary  greatly,  the  range  being  from  7.0  in  the  case 
of  horseshoers  to  10.0  (second  year  High  School)  in  the  case  of  car- 
buretor man. 

2.  In  the  case  of  six  trades,  samplings  of  tradesmen  from  Pitts- 
burgh and  Newark  (N.  J.)  the  median  grades  of  the  men  in  the  same 
trades  varied  in  the  two  cities  less  than  an  average  of  .3  grade. 

3.  The  trades  were  given  a  trade  rank  order  depending  upon  the 
median  grade  of  education  of  their  tradesmen.     The  correlation,  p  = 
.79,  between  the  grades  and  the  average  trade  rank  per  grade,  indi- 
cates that,  in  general,  poorly  educated  men  tend  to  gravitate  into 
trades  of  which  poor  education  is  the  more  typical,  and  vice  versa. 

4.  Of  all  the  tradesmen,  only  26.4  per  cent  had  persisted  through 
a  part  of  high  school  or  more;  and  2.8  per  cent  had  completed  a 
part  of  a  college  course  or  more. 

5.  Experts  are  generally  the  best  educated  of  the  three  classes  of 
tradesmen,  apprentices  next  best,  and  journeymen  least  well  edu- 
cated. This  seems  to  indicate  that  the  journeyman  stage  is  a  sif ting- 
out  stage,  possibly  a  stage  of  adaptation  of  mentality  and  mechanical 
aptitude  or  interest  to  the  job,  during  which  time  the  better  educated 
(highly  intelligent)  men  become  experts,  foremen,  owners,  and  the 
like,  leaving  behind  a  group  of  less  capable  men,  "doomed  to  be  jour- 
neymen." 

6.  White  laborers,  from  the  Camp  Dix  personnel  office  files,  were 
found  to  be  less  well  educated  than  colored  laborers,  while  both  were 
very  inferior  in  education  to  tradesmen. 

7.  General  clerks  in  New  York  City  were  found  to  have  a  higher 
median  education  than  any  of  the  trades. 

The  educational  chart  on  page  104  (Fig.  29)  shows  comparable 
results  for  the  above  trades  and  occupations  in  regard  to  educa- 
tion. The  results  here  presented  were  compiled  as  the  result  of 
interviews  with  tradesmen  in  the  shop.  The  length  of  the  bars  of  this 
chart  indicates  the  range  of  the  middle  80  per  cent  in  regard  to  educa- 
tion. The  cross-hatched  area  of  the  bar  indicates  the  range  of  the 
middle  50  per  cent.  These  data  are  based  on  a  rather  small  number 
of  cases,  the  numbers  upon  which  each  distribution  is  based  being 


102 


Trade  Tests  in  Education 


indicated  on  the  left  of  the  chart.  It  will  be  noticed  that  such  trades 
of  this  list  as  are  included  in  the  army  intelligence  chart  parallel  re- 
markably the  intelligence  of  those  groups.  A  correlation  between 
the  median  ranking  in  education  and  intelligence  of  fourteen  trades, 
for  which  data  are  available  gives  p  =  .78  =*=  .10. 


TABLE  XI 

PERCENTAGE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MEN,  ACCORDING  TO  NUMBER  OF 
GRADES  OF  SCHOOL  COMPLETED.    GENERAL  SUMMARY  OF 

174,857  MEN,  VARIOUSLY  CLASSIFIED 


Grade 

Per  Cent  Leaving  School 

Per  Cent  Retained  in  School 
to  Enter  Succeeding  Grade: 

A 

B 

C 

D 

£5 

A 

B 

C 

D 

£ 

None 

2.2 

1.0 

4-7 

0.3 

97-8 

99-0 

95-3 

99-7 

I 

0.7 

0.3 

0.5 

e 

97-1 

98.7 

94.8 

99-7 

2 

I-S 

4.8 

0.8 

0.9 

• 

95.6 

97-9 

93-9 

99-7 

3 

2.8 

1.2 

1.8 

0.2 

92.8 

96.7 

92.1 

99-5 

4 

5-0 

2.8 

3-6 

o.S 

87.8 

95-2 

93-9 

88.5 

99-0 

S 

8.0 

4.0 

4-7 

3-4 

1-9 

79-8 

91.2 

89-2 

85.1 

97-1 

6 

1  1.6 

12.7 

ii.  8 

7-6 

2.9 

68.2 

78.5 

77-4 

77-5 

94.2 

7 

10.6 

22.3 

9.8 

10.3 

10.0 

57.6 

56.2 

67.6 

67.2 

84.2 

8 

31-5 

35-0 

45-1 

34-6 

48.3 

26.1 

21.2 

22.5 

32.6 

35-9 

IH.  S. 

9-7 

II.3 

6.1 

6.0 

6.9 

16.4 

9-9 

16.4 

26.6 

29.0 

II  H.  S. 

6.2 

6.6 

6.4 

6.1 

8.9 

10.2 

3-3 

10.0 

20.5 

20.1 

Ill  H.  S. 

2.9 

2.2 

2.7 

4.2 

5-1 

7-3 

I.i 

7.3 

16.3 

15-0 

IV  H.  S. 

4-7 

I.I 

5-0 

7-1 

10.3 

2.6 

a 

2.3 

9.2 

4-7 

A  College 

0.9 

0.5 

1.2 

1-7 

2 

1.8 

3-5 

B  College 

0.6 

0.3 

I.I 

i.i 

1 

i-5 

2.4 

C  College 

0.3 

0.4 

9.2 

0.6 

0.8 

| 

i.i 

1.8 

D  College 

0.7 

i.i 

i-7 

O.I 

3 

0.0 

O.I 

Post-Grad. 

O.I 

o.o 

O.I 

0.0 

0.0 

0.0 

o.o 

o.o 

Total          loo.o      100.0      100.0      100.0      100.0 

Per  Cent  with  Part  H.  S.  or  Better: 

26.1         21.2         22.5       32.6      35.9 

No.  of  Men    18,266   120,2893     924      30,583*     4,795 

Per  Cent  with  Part  College  or  Better: 

Av.  Grade         7-431       7-53         7-83         8.09         8.86 

2.6            2              2.3           9.2        4-7 

1  Post-graduate  college  counted  as  seventeenth  grade. 

2  College  not  tabulated.   Hence  all  percentages  slightly  too  high. 

3  Only  43,358  cards  selected  at  random  from  the  120,289  were  tabulated. 

4  Excludes  "aliens,  both  friendly  and  enemy." 

6  Samplings  only  of  three  groups  taken :  (a)  Non-referred  men,  (6)  referred  and 
placed,  (c)  referred  and  not  placed.  Weighted  for  column  E  according  to  frequency  of 
occurrence:  E  =  (a  X  I?)  +  (b  X  7)  +  (c  X  S). 

8  Application  card  did  not  provide  for  entry  of  second  and  third  grades. 


Testing  and  Training  for  Proficiency  103 

TABLE  XL    KEY  TO  COLUMNS 

A.  Unemployed  men  at  Columbus  and  Dayton,  Ohio,  Free  Employment  Offices 

1916-1917  (Toops,  H.  A.  and  Pintner,  R.,  "Mentality  in  Its  Relation 
to  Elimination  from  School,"  School  and  Society,  Vol.  7,  No.  173  and  No.  174, 
1918,  pp.  507-510  and  534-539)- 

B.  All  Working  Boys  16,  17  and  18  years  of  Age  subject  to  Military  Duty,  resid- 

ing in  villages  or  towns  of  5000  population  or  over,  1919.  Survey  of  the 
Military  Training  Commission,  State  of  New  York.  Data  kindly  furnished 
by  Mr.  H.  G.  Burdge,  Director  of  Vocational  Training  Bureau. 

C.  Tradesmen,  all  degrees  of  skill  distributed  among  31  trades,  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 

Examined  in  War  Department  standardization  of  Army  Oral  Trade  Tests. 
(Toops,  H.  A.  and  Pintner,  R.,  "Educational  Differences  among  Tradesmen," 
Journal  of  Applied  Psychology,  Vol.  3,  No.  2,  1919,  pp.  33-49.) 

D.  Minneapolis  Draftees.   "Aliens  excluded."  Malone,  T.  J.,  "When  Boys  Leave 

School,"  American  Review  of  Reviews,  Vol.  60,  No.  6,  Dec.  1919,  pp.  627- 
630.) 

E.  Returned  Soldiers,  applying  for  work  at  the  Reemployment  Bureau  of  New 

York  City,  1919.  (Toops,  H.  A.,  Unsigned  news  note  in  the  World,  New 
York,  Sept.  21,  191 9.)  A  somewhat  selected  group,  containing  many  clerical 
workers. 

Table  XI  is  a  distribution  table,  compiled  from  all  data  available 
to  the  author,  of  the  grades  at  which  various  groups  of  working  men 
left  school.  It  shows  that  tradesmen  are  not,  in  general,  either  a 
superior  or  an  inferior  group  of  people  so  far  as  education  is  con- 
cerned. This  table  serves  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  typical 
tradesman  is  not  a  high  school  man.  Many  of  our  vocational  schools 
attempt  work  of  high  school  grade.  Where  such  is  done,  it  obviously 
will  fail  to  affect  the  lives  of  the  three  fourths  of  working  people  who 
have  left  school  before  formal  vocational  instruction  is  begun. 

We  are  interested  also  in  the  relationship  of  the  amount  of  educa- 
tion possessed,  as  measured  by  the  grade  at  leaving  school,  to  the 
degree  of  proficiency  in  the  trade. 

THE    RELATIONSHIP   OF   GENERAL   EDUCATION   TO   PROFICIENCY 

IN   A   TRADE 

Many  articles  have  been  written,  and  much  discussion  has  been 
devoted  to  the  problem,  "Does  education  pay?"  Groups  of  educa- 
tors, intent  on  proving  the  worth  of  some  specialty  in  education,  or  of 
education  in  general,  have  used  the  argument  that  such  education 
spays  because  it  may  be  statistically  demonstrated  that  people  with 
such  education  receive  more  wages,  rise  to  higher  positions  of  influ- 
ence, and  the  like,  than  their  unlearned  brothers.  That  these  argu- 


104 


Trade  Tests  in  Education 


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TRADE 

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Laborers-white. 
Laborers  -  colored. 
Brass  Metiers. 
Horseshoers. 
Cobblers. 
Blacksmiths-shop. 
Bricklayers. 
Carpenters-house. 
Linemen-  Telegraph 
Locomotive  ftep'rs. 
Typewriter  Rep'rs. 
Harness  Makers. 
STeamfitters. 
Bench  Hands. 
Auto  Truck  Mech's. 
Struc.  Steel  Erec's. 
Sheet  Msfc/Mtor/ws. 
Powerhouse  -D.C. 
PoMrhwe-A.C* 
Too/makers. 
Inside  Wiremen. 
Genera/  Auto  Repr. 
E/ec.Inst  Rep'rs. 
Plumbers. 
Motor  Repairers. 
Mlcanizers. 
Patternmaker*. 
Ammonia  Pipefiprs. 
Motorcyc/e  Rep'rs. 
Lathe  Hands. 
Storage  Batten/men. 
Switchboard  Rep'**. 
Carburetor  Men. 
General  Clerks. 

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FIG.  29.  DISTRIBUTIONS  OF  GRADE  AT  LEAVING  SCHOOL  OF  OCCUPATIONAL 
GROUPS. 

The  shaded  area  of  each  bar  shows  the  range  of  the  middle  50  per  cent;  the 
whole  bar  shows  the  range  of  the  middle  80  per  cent.  The  vertical  line  indicates 
the  median  of  each  trade. 


Testing  and  Training  for  Proficiency  105 

ments  may  be  fallacious  is  evident  if  one  but  considers  the  possibility 
that  the  group  in  question  may  have  been  a  selected  group  who 
would  have  succeeded  equally  well  in  industry  without  the  educa- 
tion. 

The  author  was  granted  permission  to  evaluate  the  qualification 
cards  of  one  hundred  and  thirty  soldiers,  just  returned  from 
overseas,  and  applying  for  jobs  as  general  clerks.  Using  as  a  cri- 
terion of  occupational  worth  whether  or  not  a  man  was  hired  when 
referred  to  a  prospective  employer  for  a  job,  and  evaluating  against 
this,  by  partial  correlation  method,  the  talents  for  the  job,  available 
from  the  qualification  card,  we  obtain  the  following  equation: 


in  which,  x\  is  the  predicted  job  value  (criterion) 

(not  hired  =  score  of  I 
hired  =  score  of  2) 
Xz  is  the  age  in  years. 
#3  is  the  grade  at  leaving  school. 

#4  is  the  marital  condition,  (single     =  score  of  I  ; 

married  =  score  of  2) 
#5  is  the  number  of  dependents. 

The  composite  score,  compiled  by  use  of  the  equation,  yields  a 
correlation  of  .405  with  the  criterion.  The  fact  that,  other  things 
being  equal  in  this  composite  of  talents,  the  more  education  a  pros- 
pective employee  has  the  less  desirable  was  he  considered  by  the 
prospective  employer,  may  be  merely  a  reflection  of  the  economic 
situation  at  the  time  (spring  of  1918).  Again,  one  may  say  that  the 
criterion  is  too  rough  for  accurate  results.  The  criterion  is  admittedly 
rough  and  defective.  The  important  consideration  is  that  grade 
at  leaving  school  receives  a  negative  weighting  in  the  composite  of 
talents  for  the  job. 

The  author  was  also  privileged  to  secure  intensive  data  on  a  group 
of  nineteen  eyelet  machine  tenders  in  a  large  brass  factory.  This  job 
is  semi-automatic  in  that  the  tender  merely  has  to  keep  a  number  of 
machines  fed  with  strip  metal,  and  to  watch  for  defects  in  the  prod- 


io6  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

uct,  and  detect  imperfect  working  of  the  machine.    The  following 

measures  of  job  worth  were  obtained: 

Variable  i.  (Criterion).  Average  daily  piece-rate  wage  over  a  period  of  two 
weeks,  reduced  to  a  comparable  lo-hour  day  basis,  exclusive  of  overtime  and 
contingent  wage. 

Variable  2.  Average  of  three  rankings  in  trade  ability  of  the  workers  made  by  the 
foreman,  one  week  apart,  using  the  slip  arrangement  order  of  merit  method. 

Variable  3.   Length  of  experience  on  the  job  to  the  nearest  .01  part  of  a  year. 

Variable  4.  Oral  trade  test  score.  One-word-answer  form  of  question,  adminis- 
tered orally  and  individually  by  the  author. 

Variable  5.    Grade  completed  in  school. 

Using  wages  as  our  criterion,  it  is  possible  to  determine  the  money 
value  contributed  to  daily  wage  by  one  question  answered  on  a 
trade  test,  by  one  grade  in  school  completed,  etc.,  all  other  talents  for 
the  job  of  the  composite  being  constant. 

The  formulae  resulting  are : 
In  terms  of  deviations, 

(")     §  =  .3305  X2  +  .0890^  +  .5204 -4   -  .1449  - 

*\  °1  °"3  ^4  ff& 

Or,  in  terms  of  gross  measures, 
(12)    X,  =  .0508X2  +  .1727X3  +  .0456X4  -  .1408X5  +  K. 

The  correlation  of  the  composite  with  wages  is  .687.  Again  we 
notice  that,  although  it  is  an  advantage  in  wages  received  for  a  work- 
man to  be  rated  highly  by  the  foreman,  to  have  long  experience  at 
the  trade,  and  to  receive  a  high  trade  test  score,  grade  at  leaving 
school  is  a  disadvantage,  when  other  talents  are  equal,  to  the  extent  of 
fourteen  and  a  fraction  cents  per  day  per  grade  of  school  attained,  in 
this  composite;  that  is,  grade  at  school  receives  a  negative  weight- 
ing in  spite  of  its  positive  correlation  with  the  criterion.  When  our 
educators  are  willing  to  evaluate  their  products  by  the  same  methods 
which  they  would  have  industry  use  in  evaluating  theirs,  both  will 
profit  by  the  renewed  interest  in  education.  One  should  not  general- 
ize from  two  isolated  instances  such  as  these.  The  roughness  and 
defectiveness  of  any  criterion  by  means  of  which  to  evaluate  the 
worth  of  any  educational  program,  any  selective  method,  makes 
this  form  of  analysis  difficult.  The  method  of  analysis  suggests  prob- 
lems rather  than  solves  them. 


Testing  and  Training  for  Proficiency  107 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  in  the  first  of  the  above  equations,  that 
"trade  test  ability"  is  the  most  important  contributor  to  wages,  fore- 
man's judgments  of  his  men  next  best,  while  mere  experience  in 
years  is  least  important  of  all  four,  as  judged  by  the  magnitude  of  the 
partial  correlations. 

School  surveys,  designed  to  test  the  needs  for  vocational  schools, 
have  always  been  made  with  the  point  of  view  that  such  education 
would  pay.    Hence  such  surveys  have  literally  been  searches  for  facts 
to  "prove  the  point"  that  vocational  education  would  pay.   This  has     / 
resulted  oftentimes  in  misplaced  emphasis,  to  the  detriment  of  voca-  - 
tional  education.   The  problem  should  be  "what  kind  of  vocational 
education  will  pay?"  rather  than  a  search  for  facts  to  justify  voca- 
tional education  in  general. 

In  such  surveys,  job  analyses  are  commonly  made  of  a  number  of 
trades.  The  personal  requirements,  personnel  specifications,  of 
workers  in  the  trades  (for  vocational  education  has  commonly  meant 
trade  education)  are  commonly  set  forth.  These  have  often  been  set 
down,  possibly  on  the  basis  of  a  few  interviews  with  foremen,  or 
worse  still,  on  the  basis  of  the  opinion  of  some  one  or  two  authorities 
in  vocational  education  as  to  what  ought  to  be  the  personal  require- 
ments of  the  worker. 

As  contrasted  with  such  points  of  view,  we  have  that  developed  in 
the  trade-test  work  of  the  army,  in  which  the  requirements  of  the 
worker  are  any  requirements  above  the  abilities  of  the  #-percent- 
ile  man,  his  standing  in  the  trade  being  derived  independently  of  the 
talents,  or  tests,  for  the  job, — preferably  being  some  comparative 
measure  of  production. 

When  requirements  for  the  job  are  viewed  in  this  light,  and  sub- 
jected to  statistical  treatment,  it  will  probably  appear  that  many  of 
the  traits  now  considered  important  will  prove  to  have  low  partial 
correlations  with  demonstrated  ability  on  the  job. 

It  is  instructive  to  think  of  the  total  sum  of  any  industrial  popu- 
lation's talents,  at  any  one  given  time,  as  being  a  definitely  limited 
quantity  of  talent;  thus  1,000  men  together  will  have  had  8,000 
years  of  school  attendance,  and  so  on.  When  education  is  considered 
in  this  light,  almost  all  large  groups  of  workmen  will  be  found  to  have 
a  very  large  percentage  of  "successful"  men  who  fall  far  short  of  the 
educational  standards  set  up  by  ordinary  job  analyses.  Table  XI 
gives  a  summary  of  the  distribution  of  grade  at  leaving  school  of 


io8  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

1 74>857  workmen,  as  tabulated  from  the  men's  own  statements 
recorded  on  questionnaires.  A  casual  inspection  of  this  table  will 
prove  that  about  half  of  our  working  population,  with  less  than 
eighth  grade  education,  find  jobs  somewhere.  When  our  vocational 
educators  find  vocational  education  for  this  half  of  our  population, 
then  such  education  will  more  nearly  meet  the  needs  of  those  not 
"predestined"  to  success  even  without  the  education. 

As  a  partial  solution  of  the  problem  of  vocational  placement,  we 
need  to  recognize  traits  as  being  of  variable  worth,  between  definite 
limits.  The  present  tendency  is  to  set  up  merely  a  minimum  limit 
(usually  an  "ideal"  limit)  which,  because  of  a  definite  limitation  of 
the  total  sum  of  human  talents,  it  is  ordinarily  impossible  to  main- 
tain. We  should  be  willing  to  admit  that  possibly  a  sixth  grade  edu- 
cation is  a  minimum  limit  for  general  clerks,  that  possibly  not  more 
than  one  year  of  college  education  is  desirable,  and  that  within  the 
aforementioned  minimum  and  maximum  limits,  a  seventh  grade 
education  fits  better  for  the  job  than  a  sixth  grade,  an  eighth  than  a 
seventh,  and  so  on. 

This  view  is  at  total  variance  with  the  economic  philosophy  which 
would  attempt  to  educate  only  the  few  in  order  that  the  world  might 
be  well  supplied  with  "workers."  Instead,  it  means  conservation  of 
our  human  resources  by  reserving  to  the  unintelligent  those  jobs, 
any  harder  than  which  they  are  incapable  of  performing  with  accept- 
able speed  and  accuracy,  in  short,  the  highest  type  of  vocational 
guidance  philosophy. 

THE  USE  OF  TRADE  TESTS  AS  INCENTIVES  TO  LEARNING 

It  is  even  more  difficult  for  the  student  of  trade  subjects  to  know 
when  he  has  done  his  work  well  than  for  the  academic  or  scientific 
student.  The  academic  student,  with  whom  learning  is  largely  con- 
tent learning,  may  usually  easily  classify  categorically  the  amount 
and  quality  of  his  lesson  learned  as  "the  amount  learned  to  the 
point  of  recall."  His  test  of  knowledge  and  skill  gained  is  the  simple 
test  of  recall.  The  scientific  student  may  easily  apply  the  same  test 
to  his  content  matter;  the  student  working  on  experimental  work 
usually  has  the  self-applicable  test  of  whether  his  figures  agree  with 
the  expected  figures  of  the  textbook,  whether  his  chemical  analysis 
reveals  the  same  chemical  elements  which  the  chemistry  instructor 
put  into  the  test  solution,  and  so  on.  Trade  instruction  usually  con- 


Testing  and  Training  for  Proficiency  109 

tains  a  minimum  amount  of  content  instruction,  and  much  manual 
manipulation.  It  is  difficult  to  measure  the  product  of  manual  ma- 
nipulation subjectively. 

The  use  of  self-administrative  performance  trade  tests  for  meas- 
uring mechanical  products  may  be  made  of  great  use  as  incentives  to 
better  trade  performance  in  the  case  of  students  sufficiently  advanced 
to  apply  the  tests.  Substantially  this  plan  is  already  in  operation  in 
two  engineering  colleges  known  to  the  writer. 

In  the  first  of  these  schools,  a  simple  time  standard  of  performance 
quality  being  judged  "passable"  by  the  student  foreman,  has  been 
set  up  by  the  best  average  records  of  former  classes.  Those  students 
who  beat  this  time  standard  are  allowed  extra  credit  in  grades  for  the 
superior  performance.  There  is  great  rivalry  among  the  boys  to 
turn  out  product  as  rapidly  as  possible,  and  a  keen  group  cooperative 
spirit  of  determination  to  beat  the  best  record  of  the  previous  classes. 
The  method  is  lacking  in  the  important  feature  of  failing  to  suffi- 
ciently stress  "good"  work  as  well  as  quantity  of  work,  now  stressed. 

In  the  second  school,  percentile  norms  of  performance  have  been 
set  up.  This  has  obvious  advantages  over  a  categorical  "standard 
time,"  as  the  student  can  see  for  himself  not  only  that  he  is  better  or 
poorer  than  the  standard,  but  just  how  much  better  or  poorer.  For 
school  purposes  the  merit  of  a  timed  production  of  work  obviously 
depends  upon  a  measure  of  dispersion  of  the  distribution  of  times  of 
former  students  as  well  as  upon  the  absolute  values  of  the  respective 
times  taken.  In  industry,  the  boy  who  turns  out  a  product  in  half 
the  time  of  another  is  worth  twice  as  much  wages  as  the  latter.  In 
vocational  school  work,  the  primary  emphasis  should  be  upon  the 
acquirement  of  a  certain  amount  of  trade  skill,  the  time  required 
being  a  matter  of  secondary  importance. 

If  percentile  norms  (or  index  numbers  derived  from  an  assump- 
tion of  a  normal  curve  of  distribution  of  trade  ability  measured  in 
<r's)  were  set  up  for  time  of  performance  of  all  vocational  school 
projects,  and  if  a  similar,  or  preferably  an  absolute  standard  of 
quality  of  performance  were  likewise  set  up  for  all  vocational  school 
projects,  then  every  task  performed  by  the  vocational  student  would 
be  a  cumulative  test  of  the  degree  of  his  skill  at  the  trade.  These 
tests  should  be  self-administrative.  In  this  simple  manner  the 
student  may  be  continually  faced  by  the  two  generalized  measures 
or  objectives  of  trade  work,  quality  and  quantity  of  product. 


no  Trade  Tests  in  Education 

One  of  the  big  advantages  of  such  tests  of  daily  production  is  the 
psychological  advantage  of  interest  in  the  work  which  is  created  by 
receiving  the  rating  immediately.  A  keen  interest  is  usually  kindled 
by  any  formal  examination.  If  the  ratings  are  not  received  for  sev- 
eral days  or  weeks,  during  the  time  required  by  the  teacher  for  scor- 
ing the  papers,  much  of  the  original  interest  in  the  ratings  has  been 
lost  by  the  time  the  ratings  are  received.  The  value  of  a  series  of 
daily  grades,  determined  by  the  student  himself,  in  keeping  him 
interested  in  his  work  can  be  illustrated  by  a  few  percentile  ratings 
which  presumably  might  be  received:  75,  83,  70,  86,  83,  20.  Were 
the  student  required  to  plot  his  grades  as  a  daily,  or  job  require- 
ment, the  graph  afforded  by  the  above  percentile  ratings  would  be 
sufficient  incentive  to  most  boys  to  redouble  their  efforts  on  the 
seventh  day.  And,  inasmuch  as  the  percentiles  are  based  on  the 
work  of  past  classes,  the  poor  pupil  has,  in  effect,  an  absolute  stand- 
ard to  beat  and  not  the  "unbeatable"  record  of  relative  standing  in 
his  class.  "Working  for  grades"  under  such  conditions  of  objective 
measurement,  free  from  the  instructor's  bias,  is  a  highly  laudable 
performance. 

For  rating  quality  of  product,  a  series  of  "limit"  or  "snap"  gages 
can  be  easily  provided  for  many  products.  Where  judgments  of 
quality  are  needed,  uniform  blanks  of  analyzed  "traits"  similar  to 
the  army  performance  test  scoring  points  might  be  provided  and  the 
student  be  required  as  part  of  his  task  to  rate  his  own  product,  being 
graded  on  his  ability  to  rate  his  product  as  well  as  on  the  excellence 
of  the  product  itself. 

Formal  tests  of  performance  on  analyzed  important  aspects  of 
trade  proficiency  may  also  be  made  self-administrative  and  self- 
scorable.  The  performance  measurement  test  of  Chapter  I,  designed 
to  test  the  student's  ability  to  use  measuring  instruments,  is  scorable 
by  the  use  of  a  stencil  in  but  a  minute  of  the  student's  time.  It  would 
seem  possible  to  devise  such  diagnostic  tests  of  individual  weak- 
nesses and  strengths  in  a  large  number  of  the  operations  and  pro- 
cesses found  in  the  machine  or  woodworking  shop. 
/"  The  self-scorable  feature  of  the  one-word-answer  form  of  test  has 
been  found  to  have  a  big  appeal  to  the  interest  of  students  in  classes 
in  content  subjects,  where  the  method  has  been  given  a  trial. 
Examinations  given  weekly  or  oftener,  taking  only  a  half  hour  or  so 
for  the  complete  examination  including  the  scoring,  may  be  found 


Testing  and  Training  for  Proficiency  ill 

to  be  of  much  more  value,  both  as  incentive  and  as  rating  method, 
than  much  longer  examinations  given  at  longer  intervals  and  scor- 
able  only  by  the  teacher  at  a  great  expense  of  time  and  effort.  Using 
such  tests,  it  is  not  even  necessary  that  the  questions  be  mimeo- 
graphed. The  teacher,  standing  before  the  class,  merely  reads  the 
questions  and  waits  a  short  time  for  the  students  to  record  their 
answers  before  proceeding  to  the  next  question.  All  students  may 
then  exchange  papers,  the  answers  being  scored  either  right  or  wrong 
by  the  pupils  as  the  teacher  slowly  reads  the  correct  answer  list.  The 
results  thus  far  show  that  this  method  may  be  applied  successfully 
with  students  as  low  in  ability  as  the  third  semester  of  high  school. 
The  method  will  be  found  applicable,  in  some  subjects,  to  the  upper 
grades  of  the  elementary  school  as  well. 


APPENDIX 

STATISTICAL  METHODS 

The  Pearson  correlations  herein  reported,  of  all  variables  of  n 
classes  with  n  classes  insofar  as  it  was  practicable  to  plot  them,  were 
computed  by  means  of  stencil  and  tables  of  deviation  squares  by  fre- 
quencies, using  the  following  specific  formula: 

N\  1 

-  [(SZ2  +  ZF2)  -  2(X  -  F)2J    - 

(13)     r  = 


VN  (zx2)  -  (zxy  VN 


in  which  X  and  F  are  stencil  steps. 

For  the  fourfold  Pearson  correlations  entering  into  partial  correla- 
tion regression  computations,  such  cases  as  the  correlation  between 
single  —  married  and  not-hired  —  hired,  the  formula  used  is, 

(H)  riv  =  _  ad  ~  bc  _ 


V(a  +  c)  (b  +  d)  (a  +  b)  (c  +  d) 

in  which  ad  represents  the  product  of  the  (single  —  not-hired)  by  the 
(married  —  hired)  frequencies. 

For  the  Pearson  correlations  between  a  variable  of  n  classes  and  a 
categorical  variable  of  two  classes,  the  following  formula  was  used  : 

N2(b  -Y)  -  B  (SF) 
(15)  r  =  —        v  —    J  ^      J      ,  in  which, 

VN(2Y2)  -  (SF)2 


A  is  the  total  frequency  of  the  lesser  degree  of  the  cate- 

gories of  the  ^-variable, 
B  is  the  total  frequency  of  the  greater  degree  of  the  cate- 

gories of  the  X-  variable, 
•  F  is  the  sum  of  the  b  (greater  degree  categorical  frequen- 

cies) by  their  respective  F-gross  scores. 


Appendix  113 

For  intercorrelations  of  n  variables,  using  a  calculating  machine, 
it  has  been  found  very  advantageous  : 

(1)  To  arrange  the  crude  scores  in  parallel  columns,  Xi,  Xz,.  .  .  Xn, 

(2)  subtract  from  each  gross  score  the  lowest  gross  score  of  the  col- 

umn yielding  the  remainders,  X\  —  c\,  Xz  —  Czj  ____  Xn  —  cn, 
and 

(3)  then   compute   the   correlation   in   parallel   columns   headed, 

(X,  -  d)2,   (Xz  -  czY.  ...(Xn-  cn)2,  (Xl  -  ci).  (Xz  -  cz), 

*,),....(*„.,  -  cn.^(xn  -  cn). 


Most  of  these  multiplications  may  be  done  mentally  (the  squares  of 
all  numbers  from  I  to  40  may  be  readily  memorized)  or  by  means  of 
a  simple  multiplication  table.  The  method  will  be  found  to  be  par- 
ticularly efficient  when  N  is  not  over  50  persons.  The  formula  used  is. 

N2XY  - 
(16)  r  = 


-  (SX)2  VjVSF2  -  (SF)2 

The  general  arbitrary  scoring  formula  for  tests  given  by  the  mul- 
tiple choice  method,  and  applicable  either  to  work-limit  or  time- 
limit  methods  of  scoring,  where  n  is  the  number  of  choices,  R  the 
number  of  attempted  questions  answered  correctly,  and  W  is  the 
number  of  attempted  questions  answered  wrongly  (or  omitted), 
and  A  is  the  number  of  questions  attempted,  is, 


5  =  R  -   ---W. 

U7;  n  —  i 

The   probable   error   of    an   individual   score   is   given  by  the 
formula, 


n 
(18)  ^£, 


If  a  criterion  is  available,  so  as  to  use  the  partial  regression  equa- 
tion of 

(19)     5  =  R  +  C-  W,  wherein  C  has  the  value  determined  by 
Thurstone,1 

1  Thurstone,  L.  L.f  "A  Scoring  Method  for  Mental  Tests."     Psych.  Bui.,  Vol.  16, 
No.  7,  1919,  PP.  235-240. 


Trade  Tests  in  Education 

_    0R    (rlR    '    rRW    ~     riw) 

*w  (riw 


114 

(20) 


Then  the  generalized  formula  for  the  probable  error  of  an  indi- 
vidual score  is, 


(21) 


P.  E.5  =  .6745 


(C- j) 


R-W 


The  formula  for  determining  the  reliability  of  n  forms  of  a  test 
with  n  other  forms  of  a  test  the  reliability  of  one  form  with  a  second 
being  rn,  is, 


(22) 


n>  rn 


(23) 


I  +  (n  -  I)  rn 
This  equation  may  be  solved  for  n,  yielding, 

_  rnn  (I  -  rn) 


rn  (i  -  rnn) 


f     -6 


FIG.  30.   CHART  FOR  FINDING  PROBABLE  ERRORS  OF  PEARSON  r's. 


Appendix  115 

PROBABLE  ERRORS  OF  CORRELATION  COEFFICIENTS 

For  the  convenience  of  those  who  may  be  interested  in  the  P.  E.'s 
of  the  correlation  coefficients  herein  given,  the  chart  of  Fig.  30  is 
published.  Such  straight  line  charts  may  be  adapted  to  solving 
many  equations  commonly  used  in  routine  test  work. 

To  use  the  chart:  Locate  the  r,  of  which  the  P.  E.  is  desired,  along 
the  lower  base  line.  Project  this  vertically  by  an  imaginary  line 
until  intersecting  the  diagonal  line  which  represents  the  number  of 
cases  on  which  the  correlation  coefficent  is  based.  Then,  project 
this  intersection  either  to  the  right  or  left  hand  margin  of  the  chart 
where  the  P.  E.r  may  be  read  directly.  Interpolation  must  be  done 
for  values  of  N  not  on  the  chart,  and  for  values  of  r  not  on  the  .05- 
point  division  lines.  Even  with  the  interpolation,  the  accuracy  is  as 
great  or  greater  than  is  commonly  required. 


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Industrial  Arts  Magazine,  Vol.  8,  1919,  pp.  402-403. 


VITA 

Herbert  Anderson  Toops  was  born  at  Kiousville,  Ohio,  Septem- 
ber 1 8,  1895.  After  six  years  of  attendance  at  country  schools  he 
entered  Midway  High  School,  Sedalia,  Ohio,  graduating  therefrom 
in  1912.  From  1912-1914  he  attended  Ohio  Wesleyan  University; 
and  from  1914  to  1917,  Ohio  State  University  in  the  College  of  Engi- 
neering, and  later  in  the  College  of  Education.  He  received  the 
degrees  of  B.  A.  and  B.Sc.  in  Education  in  1916  and  M.  A.  in  1917. 

During  the  war,  he  entered  the  Trade  Test  Division  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Classification  of  Personnel  in  the  Army,  where  he  served 
in  the  various  capacities  of  standardizer,  assembler  and  statistician 
on  oral  trade  tests  until  January,  1919.  At  that  time  he  entered  the 
newly  formed  Technical  Interview  Methods  Section  of  the  United 
States  Department  of  Labor  for  the  purpose  of  introducing  army 
trade  test  methods  into  the  U.  S.  Employment  Service.  Later,  he 
served  as  statistical  assistant  in  the  statistical  evaluation  of  the 
National  Research  Council  group  intelligence  tests.  During  1919- 
1920  he  was  a  research  scholar  at  Teachers  College,  Columbia  Uni- 
versity. Since  August,  1920,  he  has  been  engaged  as  specialist  in  the 
construction  of  vocational  tests  for  the  E.  and  R.  Schools  of  the 
Army. 

His  publications,  to  date,  in  full  or  in  joint  authorship,  are  as 
follows : 

1.  PINTNER,  R.,  and  TOOPS,  H.  A.  A  Chart  for  Rapid  Computation  of  Point 

Scale  Scores.   Journal  of  Delinquency,  Vol.  2,  No.  4,  1917,  pp.  209-210  plus 
chart. 

2.  PINTNER,  R.,  and  TOOPS,  H.  A.    A  Mental  Survey  of  the  Population  of  a 

Workhouse.   Journal  of  Delinquency,  Vol.  2,  No.  5,  1917,  pp.  278-287. 

3.  PINTNER,  R.,  and  TOOPS,  H.  A.   Mental  Tests  of  Unemployed  Men.  Journal 

of  Applied  Psychology,  Part  I,  Vol.  I,  No.  4,  1917,  pp.  325-341;  Part  2, 
Vol.  2,  No.  i,  1918,  pp.  15-25. 

4.  TOOPS,  H.A.,and  PINTNER,  R.  Mentality  in  its  Relation  to  Elimination  from 

School.  School  and  Society,  Vol.  7,  No.  174,  1918,  pp.  507-510;  and  No.  175, 

1918,  PP.  534-539- 

5.  PINTNER,  R.,  and  TOOPS,  H.  A.  A  Revised  Directions  Test.   Journal  of  Edu- 

cational Psychology,  Vol.  9,  No.  3,  1918,  pp.  123-142. 

6.  PINTNER,  R.,  and  TOOPS,  H.  A.    A  Drawing  Completion  Test.    Journal  of 

Applied  Psychology,  Vol.  2,  No.  2,  1918,  pp.  164-173. 


7-   TOOPS,  H.  A.,  and  PINTNER,  R.  Variability  of  the  Education  of  Unemployed 
Men.   Journal  of  Applied  Psychology,  Vol.  2,  No.  3,  1918,  pp.  207-218. 

8.  TOOPS,  H.  A.,  and  PINTNER,  R.  A  Chart  for  the  Determination  of  I.  Q.  Values. 

Journal  of  Delinquency,  Vol.  3,  No.  6,  1918,  p.  272  plus  chart. 

9.  TOOPS,  H.  A.,  and  PINTNER,  R.   Educational  Differences  Among  Tradesmen. 

Journal  of  Applied  Psychology,  Vol.  3,  No.  i,  1919,  pp.  33-49. 

10.  TOOPS,  H.  A.    Plotting  Equations  of  Three  Variables  in  Mental  Measure- 

ments. Psychological  Review,  Vol.  26,  No.  4,  1919,  pp.  317-326. 

11.  TOOPS,  H.  A.,  and  PINTNER,  R.   Mentality  and  School  Progress.   Journal  of 

Educational  Psychology,  Vol.  10,  No.  5-6,  1919,  pp.  253-262. 

12.  CHAPMAN,  J.  C.,  and  TOOPS,  H.  A.  A  Written  Trade  Test:  Multiple  Choice 

Method.   Journal  of  Applied  Psychology,  Vol.  3,  No.  4,  1919,  pp.  358-365. 

13.  TOOPS,  H.  A., and  PINTNER,  R.  Curves  of  Growth  of  Intelligence.  Journal  of 

Experimental  Psychology,  Vol.  3,  No.  3,  1920,  pp.  231-242. 


O4r 


